Top 6 Precautions During the Blood Cleaning Process
If you discover a blood spill on your property, you may be tempted to try out a few DIY blood cleaning techniques. Blood spills often appear after a serious household accident. Medical emergencies and traumatic events can also cause them. But if your instincts tell you to grab a standard household cleaner and tackle the mess, go against your instincts. Keep in mind that blood cleanup isn’t your typical household chore; only professionals should handle it.
Blood happens to be a primary vector for dangerous blood-borne pathogens, such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, etc. Hepatitis B can actually survive in dried blood on a surface for up to a week! You may be asking, “How do I clean up blood safely?” Well, we’ll explain the whole blood removal process here that we at BioClean use to keep contaminants at bay.
1. Always Secure Personal Protective Equipment First
If you wish to learn how to get dried blood out of your clothes, we’ll suggest that you refrain from touching or getting near a blood spill without setting proper barriers. Standard gloves don’t cut it when it comes to ensuring your safety. Professionals use comprehensive PPE before entering a contaminated room. Our tear-resistant gloves, protective body suits, fluid-resistant boot covers, & full-face respirators (or safety goggles) prevent accidental splashes from reaching us.
2. Block Off the Area Immediately for Blood Cleaning
Cross-contamination remains a significant issue here. It happens quite rapidly when you don’t close a biological spill. Foot traffic from family members, your employees, kids, pets, visitors, & others can track invisible yet trace amounts of blood into unaffected rooms. That’s how a simple & localized problem becomes a widespread health hazard. You should restrict people’s access to the affected room as soon as a spill takes place by placing warning signs and closing doors.
3. Avoid Using Sharp Tools Directly by Hand
Did you know that sepsis is the third-most dominant cause of death among Americans? Blood spills happen alongside broken glass, torn metal, medical sharps like needles, etc. These spills often lead to problems like sepsis or HIV when you try to clear away this debris by hand.
BioClean technicians use mechanical tools like tongs, specialized brushes, or even dustpans to collect sharp objects. They keep them in puncture-proof biohazard sharps containers.
4. Work from the Outside Inward
When you wish to remove the bulk of the liquid blood, use the right technique. Scrubbing a spill from the center outward will simply spread the contamination across a wider surface area. It’ll push blood deeper into floorboard seams or wall crevices. The best way to clean up blood is to place highly absorbent disposable towels over the spill to soak up the liquid, then gently wipe the area by working systematically from the clean outer edges inward toward the center.
5. Pay Strict Attention to Chemical Dwell Time
Crime scene blood stains can be pretty hard to remove. A common misconception about blood cleaning is that spraying a disinfectant and then wiping it away will sanitize the affected surface.
Specialized cleaners need an exact amount of dwell time to eradicate resilient viruses. It means that the affected surface must stay visibly wet with the disinfectant for some time. Like ten full minutes. That’s how you can make sure that the affected area doesn’t have germs anymore.
6. Recognize When to Remove Porous Materials
If you’re wondering whether mold is a biohazard or something else, make sure that you realize that it’s more important to understand when it’s even possible to get rid of biohazards. The EPA says that it’s practically impossible to completely extract infectious biological waste from porous surfaces. Like your carpets and couches. If blood contacts these surfaces, you can only cut out and remove the affected structure entirely. Just get rid of blood-stained carpets just to be safe.
Attempting large-scale blood cleaning on your own can expose you to severe health risks and deep emotional distress. You should trust our trauma-informed, OSHA-certified technicians to take care of everything with discretion. Our experts work directly with your insurance company to minimize your out-of-pocket expenses. Get in touch with us today to restore your property.
