Just had story time with my son, he's LEO, I'm retired FD. We (FD) "mostly" had the benefit of PPE before the exposure. But obviously LEO do not get that benefit. So he came in this a.m. and tells me the story and asks for clarification about decon for his uni. I told him just rinse everything off with cold water let it drip dry and ship it off to the cleaners.
The biggest downer is the HIV prevention meds due to exposure and tests on dude pending.
What's your Dept SOP?

Im not up to much on the lingo but I understand your kids a cop and he was exposed to HIV blood. I never heard of a Dept. procedure for decon. We write a report and then hope we dont get sick, meanwhile the uniform either gets tossed or thrown threw a wash cycle. Mind you we were still hauling stiffs during the worst of the AIDs epidemic and the Dept. didnt even issue us latex gloves. We had to get them from Hospitals.

We put ours in a bag marked bio hazard and it gets sent off for special cleaning procedure

Burned.

If I get a significant amount of blood on my uniform I just throw it away.  Keep a full uniform in locker at work and change into that.  I have so many extra pants and shirts its not worth messing with it to get it cleaned.

I have actually thrown a few away, mid shift over the years that have gotten just too bad, like soaked through to the skin bad.

Our FD has a set up where they will launder bio-hazard uniforms/equipment for us. We just have to bag it and drop it off to the duty officer and they take care of it. They have a designated washer/dryer and all the biocides etc that they need to kill anything but not f'up your uniform.

That's how we handle it.

The good thing is that HIV is actually pretty hard to contract through casual contact like that and the virus does not live outside the body for very long (like less than 10 minutes if I remember from my most recent Blood bourne Path class). If he was not stuck, did not have open wounds and didnt get blood in his mouth, nose, eyes I would be way more worried about Hepititus than HIV.

The one time I was really worried in 22 years was me and guy both fell through a glass table and got cut up while fighting. He claimed to be HIV pos and there was NO WAY that our blood did not intermingle. I took the Anti viral stuff that they had at the time, along with a shot of "Gamagloubulin" ( I think it was called) that was like a gel and hurt like a MF'er, which did suck. In the end the guy was NOT postive.

At our Dept, if there was not a HIGH RISK exposure, like above, the Meds, Tests and Hospital trip are not mandatory.

J-

we had a contract w cleaners for blood.

-always report it
-get baseline labs done
-go to follow-up blood draws

The strong meds were for open skin/needle blood transfer, not for blood on intact skin.
If you have the presence of mind or opportunity to throw on shades or safety glasses, do it. Eyes are a done deal.

Officer goes to ER for baseline tests. If the uniform is trashed it gets replaced....eventually.

Biohazard bag and it gets disposed.  Our uniforms are provided.

Last I was taught when I was an EMT was wash everything down thoroughly with a 1% bleach to 99% water solution. However, this procedure has evolved over time.

I suggest a keyword search for blood borne pathogen decontamination guidelines cdc osha. I'm on a cellphone with low battery or I'd do the search for you as this is pertinent to my near future.

Peroxide to break down the proteins and bleach to wash.

HIV/AIDS is extremely hard to contract without direct open wound contact or mucous membrane exposure. You pretty much have to bang them or share a needle.

I'd be more worried about Hep. That stuff will live weeks and is easily transferred. I get blood on my uniform almost weekly. Have a separate laundry for my work clothes. No big deal really. (Medic/ER tech)

Yep this is how we were taught and how we handle it (and my worries too).

We have Blood Borne Path re-cert every year and this how we handle it.

J-

Have any questions about how to take care of this we pay taxes for a federal agency to tell us what to do! Go look at the CDC web site easy as that! Use your tax money wisely! I will say when has cold water or as cold as you can get it from a hose been enough to treat something like HIV? Never from what I have seen but boiling water well it has a better track record then cold water! Think people please!

I am literally dumbfounded by some the responses on here.  There is obviously one or many of the following situations going on:

1) People are not paying attention during training
2) Agency training is not meeting federal minimum standards
3) Unions are not doing their jobs

This is a basic item covered in any Bloodborne pathogens training, which is OSHA required for first responders.

HIV CAN NOT LIVE OUTSIDE THE BODY!  Once HIV leave the body it immediately begins to die.  It cannot more than a few minutes, and even then, you need contact with a mucous membrane.  Once it dries, there no risk to exposure.  OSHA nor the CDC has a single exposure on record, ever, for a positive transmission via clothes.  They don' t even have a false positive on file.

If you did not have a mucous membrane exposure (eyes, mouth, nose, open cut), you wear PPE and carefully remove it and let it dry.  Air drying is best, but if you must put it in something, it goes into a paper bag, not plastic.  You wait until it dries.  You then launder it, any way you see fit, pretreating the stain.  No special machine, no special detergent, no bleach, no peroxide, etc...  Bleach and Oxy (powder safe from of peroxide for colors) just helps remove stain and makes things whiter- it has no purpose in killing or sanitizing your wash.  Once the blood is dry, there is nothing to kill.  

You folks paying for biohazard cleaning are being ripped off and blowing your budget when you could spend it elsewhere.  They are pre-treating it with detergent and then washing it normally in cold water (hot water sets protein based stains) with a cup of a peroxide cleaning agent, like Oxy, to help lift the stain out.