Mathilde Lacombe

We’ve all been nipped or even bitten pretty hard by a dog or cat and thought nothing of it. Some smaller bites are completely harmless and don’t even bother us while playing with a cute critter.

However, a serious bite can be severely painful and cause lasting damage. When an animal draws blood, it can be pretty traumatic!

If you’ve been badly bitten by an animal, you might not be sure how to handle the situation. This article will break down five important steps to make sure you take in the immediate aftermath.

Document the Incident

First of all, if you’ve been bitten by someone’s animal, you’re going to want to document what happened and how. This may not be in the front of your mind while you’re panicking and in a lot of pain, but it’s important to do.

Getting evidence of what occurred will help you with your case if you need to press charges for damages. In these cases, you’ll need to be in touch with specializing, experienced lawyers like Lamber Goodnow in Tucson.

Call Emergency Services

When you’ve gotten your bearings, you need to assess the severity of the wound or ask someone around you to help.

A very deep and severe bite will require you to call emergency services. This should be done if you are experiencing severe blood loss, bone fractures, or damage to the muscle or tissue around the wound.

Calling for an ambulance will ensure that you’re medically assessed quickly, and you can also alert the police in the case of a serious incident.

Wash the Wound

If you don’t feel that the bite requires emergency attention, you still need to take good care of it.

This starts with getting the wound clean. Although it might be painful, wash around the wound with warm, soapy water and some disinfectant if possible. This will help to remove any bacteria from the animal’s mouth, as well as clean away any other dirt from the wound to prevent infections from developing.

Perform First Aid

Once the wound is clean, you’ll want to treat it and close it up as well as you possibly can.

Use a disinfectant or anti-bacterial ointment, and close the wound up tight using gauze and some bandages. You’ll want to clean and reapply your bandages on a regular basis and allow the wound to breathe a little, too, once it’s started to heal nicely.

Follow Doctor’s Orders

It’s a good idea to get your wound looked at by a doctor, even if you don’t suspect you have any infection or need stitches. A doctor will be able to help you treat the wound correctly and give you some pointers to take good care of it.

Make sure that you follow any medical advice given to you and monitor the wound carefully over the following days to make sure you notice any infections that might be developing. You’ll want to head back to your doctor immediately if you notice anything amiss.