How many sides does your sheets have ?

[FireMedic65]

tide to go pen, and febreeze...

[letmesleep]

Cot Quilts are used in this area by a neighboring district during the cold winter months only. They are usually secured to the stretcher via Velcro, and then the pad is secured again with Velcro. After all the Velcro stacking is completed you then make your stretcher with sheets or whatever is used. My personal opinion with these quilts is that they would be no different than reusing sheets........it's just nasty!

As the old saying goes, treat your pt as you would a family member, and I wouldn't place a family member (mine or yours) on used sheets.

[FireMedic65]

If there are any type of body fluids exposed to any part of the equipment, even if its on the line, we disinfect that equipment. Mostly people don't like to do it, but my health is pretty important to me. I have soaked straps in cleaning solutions over night before and had them scrubbed. Done lots of laundry on things. Once a month I like to have the whole ambulance done over and disinfected. Heck, I even use a separate pen for patients. It's been known the your pen is the dirtiest thing, since it is probably never cleaned.

Some people may not care a lot, or realize the nature of keeping things clean. Just because the patient comes into contact with it, doesn't mean you don't. We come in contact with them a lot more than most people think.

One time at work, we got really bored during a snow storm. We actually took cultures from various places in the ambulance and had them tested in the lab when they weren't busy. The results... were staggering.

[brentoli]

I know we always change. We get blankets from the receiving facilities we use for sheets. I wipe down the pad after every call. I think I am the only one who does it that often. Everyone knows to wipe it down if there was soil type activity with the transport though.