Project Zomboid First Aid: How to heal wounds and cure sickness

Project Zomboid First Aid: How to heal wounds and cure sickness
Images via The Indie Stone

Written by 

Tarran Stockton

Published 

15th Mar 2023 10:50

The Project Zomboid First Aid skill is one of the most important skills in the game and will ensure you can survive your non-fatal injuries and last well into the apocalypse.

During your time in Project Zomboid, you'll pick up a manner of scrapes and cuts, break bones, and contract illnesses, which can kill you if left unchecked. Using First Aid is the primary way to treat these and step them from getting worse, so you will want to know how the First Aid system works. Read on for our full breakdown of the Project Zomboid First Aid skill. 

Project Zomboid First Aid: What is the First Aid skill?

Project Zomboid First Aid bandaging
Click to enlarge

The Project Zomboid First Aid skill is a crafting skill which is used to heal yourself and friendly players. As your First Aid level increases you can perform the interactions faster, make bandages and poultices last longer, increase the effectiveness of splints, heal faster, and evaluate wounds and infections better. 

Treating yourself or other players will reward you with experiences, and you can learn some First Aid skills from the Life and Living TV channel and books. 

There are two occupations which immediately contribute to your First Aid skill, which are the Doctor and Nurse. The Doctor gains +3 to First Aid, while the Nurse has +2, and a further +1 to the Lightfooted skill. There is also the First Aider trait which rewards +1 to the skill, and the Former Scout, which adds +1 to both First Aid and Project Zomboid Foraging.

Project Zomboid First Aid: How to heal yourself

Project Zomboid First Aid
Click to enlarge

There are a plethora of injuries and illnesses you can pick up in Project Zomboid, and treatments are conducted by navigating to the health status window, which can be activated to the left of the screen.

Once the health status window has appeared, you can heal by right-clicking the body or the text which explains which injuries are present.

You'll also know you're injured or ill in some way, as the bleeding or injured moodles will appear in the top right of the screen. It's also worth pointing out in the vanilla game, that First Aid cannot stop you from turning into a zombie if you are bitten or scratched.

All treatments require some form of materials and items, for example, a cut on your arm would require some thread to stitch it, a bandage to cover the wound, and alcohol wipes to clean it. There are also some basic steps you can follow when using the Project Zomboid First Aid skill, which depends on the type of injury you have picked up.

Scratches or lacerations need to be disinfected and bandaged, deeper cuts may require the removal of glass or bullets before disinfecting and bandaging, breaks will need splints and bandages, burns need constant cleaning and bandaging, and illnesses require poultices. After you have fixed the immediate issue, monitor the injury to make sure it continues to heal. 

That's our rundown of the Project Zomboid First Aid skill, and now players should be able to heal their different wounds, and identify the First Aid materials.

Don't forget to look at our Project Zomboid Helicopter event guide on how to survive it.


Tarran Stockton
About the author
Tarran Stockton
Tarran is a Senior Guides Writer at GGRecon. He previously wrote reviews for his college newspaper before studying Media and Communication at university. His favourite genres include role-playing games, strategy games, and boomer shooters - along with anything indie. You can also find him in the pit at local hardcore shows.
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