Steps to cleaning and maintaining manikin equipment (for instructors)

Safeguarding your students before, during, and after class is important! Now more than ever, we need to be vigilant in making sure we apply additional precautions and safe practices.

As a health and safety training organization, we've always required instructors to take special care of their training equipment before, during, and after each class. It's an essential part of the instructional process. As you see from this ProTrainings video on cleaning and sanitizing equipment, we encourage you to have safe equipment and decontaminate your equipment to offer a worry-free environment for students to learn in. 

Take a look at your manikin equipment...is it safe to use? 

Equipment that is broken, cracked, or overworn should be discarded and never used for training. These are potentially hazardous to the student in many ways and can hold bacteria (that is unable to be cleaned out) in the cracks and broken areas.

Do you have your disinfection solution with you in class?

You should have a bottle of EPA registered and approved over-the-counter disinfectants, such as Lysol Disinfectant Spray or Max Cover Mist (EPA Reg No. 777-99 & 777-127), or use a 10:1 diluted solution (1 part bleach & 9 parts water) where you mix 12.8 ounces of bleach with 128 ounces of water. This is the weakest solution of disinfection recommended by the CDC that you can make at home. The solution breaks down the fatty bilayer that holds viruses and other germs. Keep this solution with you so that you can sanitize the equipment as recommended, before and after each use and when switching or sharing equipment between students.

Equipment decontamination steps:

1. Put on sterile gloves.
2. Disassemble manikins according to the manufacturer's instructions and spray the parts down, saturating them with one of the recommended cleaning solutions.
3. Scrub and wipe them down "vigorously" with a clean towel getting the bleach solution into the nose, ears, and other skin folds of the manikin. Use as much of the solution and towels as you need to get the surface area clean.
4. Follow up by spraying the manikin with a mist of the bleach solution and letting that set until dry (surfaces are to be wet for at least 10 minutes to fully decontaminate). Remove and dispose of gloves.
5. Once dry, put on a new pair of sterile gloves, rinse all surfaces with fresh water, and with towels immediately dry all external and internal surfaces. Allow parts to air dry before reassembly and before inserting new lungs. Do this to ensure your mankins are clean between students and before storing them.
6. Do these same steps (utilizing clean towels each time) when you switch out, or share, manikins and other equipment, such as bag valve masks and AED Trainers, between students.

Remember to wear gloves when removing and disposing of the lung inserts and when cleaning and separating the one-way valves from the rescue masks, The reuseable masks should be cleaned with warm-hot soapy water and let dry between uses. Any masks that cannot be cleaned safely should be disposed of and replaced.

If you still have questions, feel free to reach out to our instructor helpline by email at instructorhelp@protrainings.com or call us at 877-630-1310.