If your child’s finger has been crushed in a door:
- comfort them,
- raise the hand,
- press a clean cloth on any bleeding, and
- wrap a cold pack in a cloth over the finger for 10 to 15 minutes
Many door injuries are painful bruises that settle within days. Go to urgent care or the emergency department TODAY if bleeding won’t stop after 10 minutes of pressure, the nail has lifted or torn, the tip is cut or hanging, the finger looks bent, or there’s a painful black pool of blood under most of the nail.
A child’s fingertip injury that looks like a small cut at the base of the nail can hide a broken growth plate. That one needs antibiotics and often a washout.
I remember…when my 2nd kiddo, David, was 1+ years old and didn’t know better…he…thank God…sloooooowly closed a door onto my 1st kiddo, Olivia’s finger, at the door joint, and that was a terrible location to have a finger at.
She kept crying more than 10 minutes, and I figured that it’s not a simple crush injury, there must have been something happened to the bone, and I rushed her to Sengkang General Hospital (we stayed in Sengkang back then). By then, she was whimpering, but settled in a bit more, and we did an x-ray – say a crush fracture but fairly stable.
The doctor gave her some painkillers and I cant remember (at this point, it was 8-9 years ago) if I splinted it or not but we have to be very careful of splinting for young children…as it IS a choking hazard. But it was resolved fairly quickly, thank God.
Right now
- Stay calm. Children read your face
- Check the whole finger: bleeding, the nail, the tip, whether it looks straight
- Press gently on bleeding with a clean cloth for 10 minutes without lifting to check
- Raise the hand above the heart
- Cold pack wrapped in a cloth, never ice directly on the skin
- Pain relief: children’s acetaminophen or ibuprofen at the dose on the pack for their age and weight
- If part of the fingertip has come off, wrap it in damp gauze, seal it in a plastic bag, and place the bag on ice. Bring it with you. See fingertip injuries
Children’s fingertips heal astonishingly well. What they can’t do is heal around an infection or a nail bed that was left torn.
Go today if
- Bleeding doesn’t stop with 10 minutes of firm pressure
- The nail is lifted, torn, or partly off
- There’s a cut across the nail or at the base of the nail fold
- Part of the tip is cut, flapping or missing
- The finger looks bent, crooked or shorter
- The tip droops and your child can’t straighten it
- Blood under the nail is painful and covers most of it
- You can see bone
- The finger is pale, blue or cold
The injury that’s easy to miss
In children, a crush can break the growth plate at the base of the fingertip bone and tear the nail bed at the same time.
- What it looks like: the fingertip droops like a mallet finger, the base of the nail has lifted up out of the skin fold, and there’s bleeding from under the cuticle
- Why it matters: it’s an open fracture. Left untreated, it can become infected and affect nail and bone growth
- What happens: cleaning, antibiotics, putting the nail bed back in place, and a splint
See growth plate fractures in children and mallet finger.
When it’s just bruised
- Days 0 to 2: swelling and bruising, cold packs, elevation, pain relief
- Days 3 to 7: pain settling. Your child starts using the finger in play
- Weeks 1 to 3: bruising fades. A dark nail may grow out over months
After treatment
- A fingertip protector splint keeps the tip safe from knocks
- A damaged nail may fall off and takes around four to six months to grow back in children. It may look ridged for a while. See nail changes after injury
- Watch for infection: throbbing, spreading redness, pus or fever. See infected finger
Preventing the next one
- Finger guards on the hinge side of doors, where the gap closes with the most force
- Door stoppers for heavy doors and car doors in play areas
- Teach “hands in” before closing car doors
For older children and adults, see crushed fingertips and nail bed injuries.
See also: hand dryer finger injuries and safety tips.
Bruised and settling can stay home. Nail lifted, tip bent or bleeding that won’t stop goes in today.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.