Companies tackle mess a corpse can leave behind

Published on October 1, 2009
Angie's List
by Staci Giordullo

What happens to those who die alone — and no one notices? Welcome to the business of biohazard remediation. Originally limited to crime and trauma scene cleaning, the industry's scope has grown to include decontamination of homes soiled by human waste, tissue and body fluids, and other toxins associated with a decomposing body.


Ronald Gospodarski, owner of Bio-Recovery Corp. in New York City, started his business in 1988 after spending years as a paramedic and realizing no company was offering these types of services.

"No one is prepared for this type of thing," he says. "I come in and solve the problem."

According to Gospodarski, approximately 75 percent of his business is cleaning up after decompositions.

"I get calls from family, police, landlords — a lot of times it's the property manager," he says.

Stacie Salerno of Bradford, Pa., recently hired Gospodarski to clean her brother's apartment after he was stabbed to death, reportedly by a stranger police believe he likely met online. "I never knew this kind of company even existed," Salerno says. "But they took care of everything. You never would know there was a murder in that apartment."

Like many other industries, the prerequisites to be a bio-recovery technician vary greatly by state. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires proper training in order to handle blood-borne pathogens. In addition, companies should hold the proper permits for biohazard waste disposal as well as general liability and pollution liability insurance.

What happens to those who die alone? Welcome to the business of biohazard remediation. See examples of biohazard remediation >>Dale Cillian, president of the American Bio-Recovery Association, says the lack of a nationwide standard is unnerving because there are companies that grossly overcharge customers and don't thoroughly clean or properly dispose of the waste.

"Some of these companies will rob people blind," Cillian says. "They're hurting families at the worst time of their lives." Gospodarski, who's certified with the ABRA, agrees and says his average job costs between $1,500 and $3,500. "Customers need to do their due diligence before hiring a company like mine," he says.

Industry experts recommend verifying companies with ABRA — which has 80 members — Angie's List and the BBB.

While a coroner typically removes the body before the biohazard remediation team arrives, there are a number of threats left behind — many of which go unnoticed by the untrained eye.

"We see marks of contamination affected during the removal of the body such as fluid from the body bag touching walls and furniture," says John DiGulio, co-founder of USA Decon in Houston. "Light switches and door handles are usually left unclean."

Hiring a professional to clean up such a mess can lift an emotional burden from grieving family members. "There aren't many jobs in which you can provide unimaginable relief for someone," DiGulio says.

Originally limited to crime and trauma scene cleaning, the scope of biohazard remediation has grown to include the cleanup and decontamination associated with mold, human waste, tissue and body fluids, animal waste and other toxins.

If a body is left undiscovered in a home for any period of time, a bio-recovery technician is needed to remove the unpleasant consequences of that decomposition.

Tenants offered way out of troubled building

OAKLAND, CA (KGO) -- The repairs are finished at an East Oakland apartment complex which was the scene of a long police standoff last week. It is the same building where two Oakland police officers were gunned down this spring.

The crime scene clean-up crews were back Thursday, trying to remove the lingering stench of tear gas.

As if the history of the building is not bad enough, the property is now in foreclosure. The bank that owns it says the cleanup is complete and that residents can return. But many do not want to.

The 74th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard apartment building is the same place where Oakland SWAT team members Sergeant Ervin Romans and Sergeant Daniel Sakai were killed in a shootout with Lovell Mixon March 21, 2009. The shootout came after Mixon had killed Oakland Police Officer John Hege and Sergeant Mark Dunakin during a traffic stop earlier that day.

Just last week, police put the building on a 12-hour lockdown during a standoff with a shooting suspect who they say hid inside the apartment. Police ransacked units searching for the gunman. Residents were forced to move out.

"It's too many incidents," displaced tenant Bernard Hampton said. "That's the second shooting over there and there aint no telling what else might happen over there."
Tamalpais Bank says it will pay for a three week hotel stay so tenants can find other living arrangements. A bank spokesperson said, "Whether we get a reimbursement from the city or not...just morally speaking this is the right thing to do to get people back on their feet."

It turns out the city may not have to pick up the final tab for damages caused by the police raid or the inconvenience it caused tenants, who have been living in a hotel ever since.

A police department spokesman told ABC7, "In many instances...the city or county cannot be held liable for damage based on qualified immunity (public safety personnel lawfully performing their duties)."

Tenants like Tamesisha Marbray and her new born daughter feel stuck in the middle.
"It's a dark cloud over the building," Marbray said. "Two times is enough, the third time, bullets fly anywhere, go through wall, you know we're all in there, unsafe basically."

Tenants say they are unsafe in part because the man at the center of the standoff, accused of shooting another man around the corner, has been released from custody because the victim is refusing to cooperate with investigators.

The Final Scene

A Rancho Cucamonga company pioneers the science—and emotional art—of cleaning up a crime scene

By: Nate Jackson

On his hands and knees, clothed head-to-toe in biohazard gear, Chris King uses a white rag to mop up a puddle of viscous red/brown blood clots and pink spinal fluid from the floor of an Anaheim garage. It’s 9:30PM on a summer Sunday; the temperature is still only in the 70s. King is a native of Upland, a former restaurant server. Sweat forms rivulets from his scalp, drips off his clear protective face mask, onto the concrete floor, mingling with the muck and ooze, which harbors a stale perfume of iron and rotting fruit.

“You have to work in stages so you don’t miss anything,” says King, working in tight circles, tossing each sopping red rag into a biohazard waste bin. He rarely looks up at his clients, three mid-sized men standing sullenly amid the usual flotsam and jetsam of a California garage— clothing racks, a treadmill, two bicycles, yellow and pink, leaning against a book shelf. Tonight they have improbably lost a family member—a father of three young children who had fatally shot himself in the head several hours earlier.

For King and the crew at Crime Scene Steri-Clean, cleaning up the worst remnants of human nature is a way of life. But after 15 years in business, these pioneers of the private crime scene/ biohazard disposal industry believe that their ability to handle both the physical mess and emotional wreckage of everyday tragedy is what continues to keep them unique—and in business.

“Who’s gonna clean this?”
“That’s the hardest part, having to see [clients] going through such a painful situation,” whispers King behind the company van after offering a second round of condolences to the men inspecting his work. Next to body decompositions, suicide clean ups are the most common. Three years after finding the job on a Craigslist posting, King can still remember the details of every clean up he’s ever done; suicides, murders, rat-infested houses.

Founded in 1995 by husband and wife Cory and Tammy Chalmers, Rancho Cucamonga-based CSSC is probably one of the last businesses you would think even existed. That is, until you need them.

Servicing over 30 cities including most of the Inland Empire, L.A., Orange County and parts of Northern California, the 24-hour clean up crew handles everything from blood and brain matter, to body decompositions and cluttered houses that would send an ordinary maid service screaming for the hills.

As CEO of the company, Chalmers and his wife, the company’s CFO, have laid enough ground work with surrounding CHP, fire department and law enforcement agencies to ensure that they’re never short on calls. At this point, getting woken up by a call of a car accident, a shooting or a stabbing is nothing new.

Besides doing his part to run the company, Chalmers is also a firefighter for the city of Garden Grove. But it was what he saw before that—during his days as a paramedic, running in and out of grisly scenes and leaving families to clean up the mess—that inspired him to start a side business.

“I would see the family all distraught and crying and emotional,” he recalls. “And I wondered: Who’s gonna clean this?”

One haunting scene finally inspired him to go home to his wife and propose the idea of a crime scene clean up company. He had walked into a bathroom where a man with hemophilia had committed suicide with a shot gun.

“You couldn’t see any of the tile floor,” says Chalmers, who remembers standing in front of a lake of red and violence splattered on the walls. The sound of the man’s wife screaming hysterically in front of the house added to the horror. He knew once the police and paramedics left with the body, she would be left to clean the bathroom.

A decade and a half later, CSSC finds itself in an industry bordering on over-saturation in California. They are now one of 315 crime scene clean up companies in the state.

“There’s not enough business to go around,’ says Cory Chalmers, adding that many of these newly-licensed companies tend to cycle out of business in six months because the inability to snag consistent work.

“It’s not like you can just advertise in the yellow pages and people will call you,” he says. “Who thinks when their mom kills herself to grab the yellow pages? Nobody.”

So how does CSSC continue thriving in the midst of so many fly-by-night companies? Several years ago, Tammy Chalmers took a step that changed the face of the company from blood scrubbing vendor to viable resource.

Using her expertise in the field of bloodborne pathogens and hoarders (or pack rats), Tammy Chalmers teaches free classes to law enforcement and firefighters on how to effectively protect themselves against blood-transmitted diseases like hepatitis and other biohazard on behalf of CSSC. Though the classes aren’t for profit, it’s a marketing strategy that gives their name and number to agencies that require their services. These days, her skills are put to the test daily as she trains classes all over California. Currently the company carries three major services: crime scene clean up, hoarder clean up and the Home Again Foundation, which provides government-funded assistance to those in need of the company’s services.

“All of us as a team do amazing work and you leave the job exhausted most of the time, not just some of the time,” says the upbeat, blonde-haired former wedding coordinator. There was a time early on in the business where she found herself plucking skull fragments out of walls as she cleaned crime scenes side by side with her husband. She calls them “the old knee pad and scrub brush days.”

Staring down death
Besides being on call 24 hours a day, it’s an employee’s ability to deal with distraught clients on a daily basis that determines how they will fair in the company. The ability to deal with people at the worst time in their lives is a mission that never gets easier.

Despite, or maybe because of the gruesome nature of their business, CSSC has no shortage of media interest in what they do. The company has been the subject of several TV pilots and magazine articles. Even Samuel L. Jackson came down for a training session to prepare for a movie role in the 2008 film Cleaner. On a daily basis, Chalmers fields emails and phone calls from people who want a job, chasing gory TV fantasies.

“It’s not glamorous, not CSI,” says Tammy Chalmers. “It’s hard, back-breaking, emotional, difficult—everything you could possibly say about a job.”

For workers like King, who’ve spent countless nights erasing blood and bad memories for clients, the job has taught lessons that sometimes only a stare down with death can provide.

“When you’re cleaning up a 19-year-old kid who just got hit by a car, it makes you realize that you don’t have a predetermined amount of time. So it’s within our best interest as human beings to kind of embrace every single minute as if it is going to be the last one and that’s what I try to live by everyday and just be a very pleasant, happy person.”

Crime Scene Leftovers Pose Problem For Sanitation

Call it the Case of the Bloody Mattress.

City sanitation workers in southwestern Kentucky were recently left with the problem of how to dispose of a bloody mattress put out with the trash.

The mattress came from a home where police say a 37-year-old man appears to have died from self-inflicted stab wounds. The problem came when trash collectors realized they couldn't pick up a potential biohazard, but didn't want to leave it by the side of the road in a residential neighborhood in Hopkinsville.

"This was an area of concern for us because blood is considered a biohazard and not only can our trash trucks not pick it up, but it could be dangerous for people in the community," said George Hampton, a route supervisor for Hopkinsville Solid Waste Authority.

The Kentucky New Era reports that the mattress disappeared by midweek, but sanitation officials didn't take it and were still trying to make sure it was properly disposed of. The location of the mattress remained a mystery at week's end.

Hopkinsville sanitation workers received an anonymous call reporting a mattress, possibly covered in blood, that had been set on a curb outside of a home. That was the concern of the anonymous caller, Hampton said, who said children in the neighborhood could start to play on the mattress and come into contact with the dried blood that might have diseases.

Because there was blood on the mattress, sanitation workers couldn't haul it off with the rest of the trash.

"It raises a question for us about where we take it from here," Hampton said. "Someone has to clean up messes like these and we can't do it."

Solid Waste Superintendent Bill Bailey said sanitation workers aren't allowed to pick up possible biohazards, including blood, from the side of the road. Instead, Bailey said, the department needs to call other landfills to see who will pick up and take the items.

"Sometimes we can process and wrap it in plastic and dispose of it that way. But other times we have to contact a company that deals with disposing of medical waste."

Charlotte Write, a spokeswoman for Stericycle, a national company that specializes in medical waste disposal, said medical waste is generally burned to kill pathogens that can live in dried blood.

"It is important to dispose of all medical waste, especially waste that comes from the body, so as not to spread diseases," Write said.

Hopkinsville Police Chief Guy Howie said the families must clean up the scene of a murder or suicide or pay to have it done.

"It doesn't sound very friendly, I know, but that's just how it has to be handled," Howie said. "Someone has to clean it up and someone has to dispose of all of this, it's just a matter of figuring out who. It's amazing that just one mattress on a curb can raise so many questions."

Someone solved sanitation's problem by taking the mattress from in front of the home. Bailey said sanitation workers didn't remove it, but finding out what became of the mattress is important. It had to be properly sterilized and disposed of.

"We can't just stick it in our landfill and be done with it," Bailey said. "Whether it's on that curb or not, it's still hazardous material."

Berkeley Man’s Suicide Leads to Discovery of Body Buried Behind Wall

By Richard Brenneman

The dramatic suicide of a Berkeley man late Monday afternoon led police to a second gruesome discovery two days later, a badly decomposed male corpse walled up inside the a first floor laundry room.

A caller’s report of a loud argument brought officers to the building at 2235 Ashby Ave. Monday night, and they were directed to the apartment of Hassan Bin Ali.

Once the officers were inside the apartment, Bin Ali “pulled a handgun, put it to his head and subsequently took his own life,” said Berkeley police spokesperson Officer Andrew Frankel.

The police daily bulletin for Monday lists the time of the shot as 5:55 p.m.

Mortally wounded, he was rushed to Highland Hospital by a Berkeley Fire Department ambulance, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Frankel said the dead man had lived alone, and officers don’t know who he was arguing with at the time they were called. “We haven’t heard any reports of anyone seen coming or going, so it could have been an argument over the telephone,” he said.

During the subsequent investigation, “officers on the scene found evidence that led them to believe another crime may have been committed.”

Based on that evidence, detectives obtained a search warrant and began a thorough search of the building, leading to the discovery of the body entombed behind a wall on the first floor.

“I have no idea how long the body had been there,” he said. The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, and it was only the following day that forensic examiners were able to determine that the corpse was that of a male.

While one published account cited a neighbor who had described Bin Ali as paranoid before his suicide, Frankel said he had spoken to a neighbor who had been shocked that the man had taken his own life.

The Alameda County Coroner’s office is currently conducting an examination to determine what killed the concealed corpse, and until a finding is made, Frankel said the cause is being listed as “suspicious,” rather than as a homicide.

“We’re still aggressively working the case,” he said.

In a statement to the press released Friday afternoon, Berkeley Police Sgt Mary Kusmiss said “the Alameda County Coroner completed an autopsy yesterday. Due to decomposition of the body, the coroner will have to rely on dental records to confirm and/or rule out an identity.”

Bin Ali is known to have had a son, and officers have been unable to locate him, “though we are in contact with other members of the family,” Frankel said.

He asked anyone with any information about Bin Ali and the case to call police at 981-6900.

Berkeley firefighters were called to the scene after the body was discovered to assist with biohazard containment, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong.

Berkeley police were responsible for retrieving the remains, which were contained in a large coffin-sized wooden box.

“We provided tools and equipment,” said Deputy Chief Dong.

Once police and firefighters had completed their phase of the removal, Arturo Sopon and his private cleanup team Morgan Environmental Service, an Oakland firm licensed by the state to handle hazardous waste and trauma scenes, arrived to finish the job, donning Tyvek suits, protective masks, boots and gloves, taping over the seams to prevent exposure.

“We clean up bodily fluids,” Sopon said, adding that work often spiked over the Christmas season and during summer months.

Why you need crime scene cleanup services

By Alex Thomson

Crime scene cleanup or trauma scene cleanup after the death of someone either violently or naturally is by and large the responsibility of the victim’s family. Even till few years ago, there were a handful of cleaning companies that specialized in trauma cleaning service. But today this niche service has emerged as a lucrative business and there are many companies who provide this service.

Trauma cleaning service requires special experience, skills, equipment and expertise to deal with different types of bio-hazardous waste and dispose them efficiently with the minimum possible emotional stress to the victim’s family.

The most traumatic form of death is violent death and leaves the victim’s family feeling both victimized and traumatized. Coming to terms with the unnatural death of a loved one is in itself an uphill task for the bereaved family, and to top it they have to deal with other practical matters like making funeral arrangements, dealing with insurance issues, contacting surviving family and friends and locating wills. Furthermore, in case of violent crimes the police and the media are also involved. This can really overwhelm any family. Here is where trauma cleaning service comes to your rescue. They lighten one of the heaviest burdens, that is of dealing with the horrid murder cleanup. They will take care of the crime scene cleanup, ensuring that the scene is restored to its pre-incidental state as far as possible and in the most quick and efficient manner thus allowing you to deal with other important matters. Most service providers work discreetly and protect the confidentiality of the sufferer and family.

Most of the times, the crime scenes are so ghastly that they can induce additional emotional trauma in victim’s friends and family. By hiring professionals for cleanup, you can reduce this emotional stress. Immediately after death the nature begins its process of breaking down the body. Unattended death scene and dead bodies can be dangerous as it gives rise to blood borne pathogens, mold spores and bacteria. You may try to clean the area by yourself but the exposure may result in flu-like diseases or direct attack on the respiratory system. So it is advisable to leave this job to professionals who specialize in bio fluid and blood remediation.

The total cost involving a trauma scene cleanup will depend on a number of factors. One of the most major factors is that how many technicians will be needed for the job, how long will the job take and the quantity of hazardous material that needs to be treated and disposed of. It can range anywhere in the range of $100 to $1000 per hour. Some people might call this business as capitalizing on death but it is still essential and indispensable in case of a death.

Crime Scene Cleanup: What It Involves

A crime scene cleanup service is not without its complications. Crime scene cleaning encompasses restoring the crime scene to its original state. When a crime is usually discovered, crime scene cleaners are not called until after officers of the law, like the crime scene investigators, have done their jobs first and have given the go ahead for the cleaners to come in. If you intend to hire a crime scene cleanup company, you must make sure that they are well equipped and fit right to get the job done. A crime scene presents challenging conditions.

The Use Of Protective Gears:
Crime scenes can very well involve the use of hazardous or deadly substances. For safety reasons then, it has become imperative that crime scene cleaners use protective clothing, in addition to protective tools and gadgets. You must see to it that they have all the necessary protective gears and gadgets. The protective clothing can consist of disposable gloves and suits. A disposable gear is preferred nowadays since it offers the best protection against contamination. You use it one time and get rid of it. That way, the dangers of contamination is virtually brought down to zero percent. Protective clothing extends to respirators and the use of heavy-duty industrial or chemical-spill protective boots.

Among the gadgets that a crime scene cleaning company must have are special brushes, special sprayers, and wet vacuum. These special tools ensure added protection against getting into contact with the hazard could very well be present in the crime scene. There is large, special equipment such as a mounted steam injection tool that is designed to sanitize dried up biohazard materials such as scattered flesh and brain. You would also need to check if they have the specialized tank for chemical treatments and industrial strength waste containers to collect biohazard waste.

Of course, any crime scene clean up must have the usual cleaning supplies common to all cleaning service companies. There are the buckets, mops, brushes and spray bottles. For cleaning products, you should check if they use industrial cleaning products. A crime scene cleaning company must have these on their lists:

1 - Disinfectants including hydrogen peroxide and bleaches - The kinds that the hospitals used are commonly acceptable.

2 - Enzyme solvers for cleaning blood stains. It also kills viruses and bacteria.

3 - Odor removers such as foggers, ozone machines, and deodorizers

4 - Handy tools for breaking and extending such as saws, sledgehammers, and ladders

Established crime scene operators also equip themselves with cameras and take pictures of the crime scene before commencing work which. The pictures taken may prove useful for legal matters and insurance purposes. You never know which.

Needless to say, a specially fitted form of transportation and proper waste disposal is also needed. These requirements are specific. As you can imagine, crime scene cleaning is in a different category on its own. A home cleaning or janitorial service company may not be able to cope up with the demands of a crime scene. A crime scene cleanup service requires many special gears and tools that a home cleaning or a janitorial service company does not usually have or does not require. Crime scene cleaning if not done correctly can expose the public to untold hazards.

What Else To Look For In A Crime Scene Cleanup Company
You may also want to hire a company that has established itself. An experienced company with a strong reputation is always a plus but it could be expensive too. You will do well to balance your needs with what is your budget. There are several companies that offer specific prices such as for death scene clean up categories and suicide clean up categories. Most companies own a website and have round the clock customer service as receptionists.

When looking for a suitable crime scene cleaning service, among the first things you need to do is to scout for price quotes. Crime scene cleanup services usually provide quote after they have examined the crime scene and then they give you a definite quote. Factors that are usually considered include the number of personnel that will be needed to get the job done. It also includes the amount of time that might be needed. The nature and amount of the waste materials that need to be disposed will also be factored in. You can be sure that the more sophisticated equipments needed the more expensive it will get.

Crime Scene Cleanup And Your Insurance
For homeowners, the best approach is always to make sure that crime scene cleanup services clauses and provisions are written down on the contracts or policies. The inclusion of crime cleanup services clauses is very common and has become standard clause in most homeowner’s policy. Make sure that you are covered for this unforeseen event. Make sure that your policy directs the crime scene cleaning company to transact directly with the homeowner insurance company. A crime scene cleaning service is usually a standard clause in many homeowners’ insurance clause. These companies often do the paperwork in behalf of clients.

If for some reason you do not have such coverage by any policies relating to crime scene cleanup on your home, there are ways to keep your expenses controlled.

Finding the right company can be very taxing, especially that you have to deal with the emotional stress stemming from the crime itself, especially with a crime scene involving death.

There are many crime scene cleanup companies in operation nowadays. There are reliable professionals that you can hire and prices are relatively competitive. As of recently, crime-scene cleanup services can cost up to $600 for an hour of their service. A homicide case alone involving a single room and a huge amount of blood can cost about $1,000 to $3,000.

In recent years, crime scene cleaning has come to be known as, "Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination or CTS. Basically, CTS is a special form of crime scene cleaning focusing on decontamination of the crime scene from hazardous substances such as those resulting from violent crimes or those involving chemical contaminations such as methamphetamine labs or anthrax production. This type of service is particularly common when violent crimes are committed in a home. It is rare that the residents move out of the home after it has become a scene of a crime. Most often, the residents just opt to have it cleaned up. That is why, it is very important to hire the best crime scene cleaning company out there. The place needs to be totally free from contamination of any kind. You have to make sure that the company is able to remove all traces of the violent crime that took place. This includes cleaning biohazards that are sometimes invisible to the untrained eye.

Legally speaking, federal laws state that all bodily fluids are deemed biohazards and you should make sure that the cleanup service company you hire understands this and includes it in the cleanup. These things appear as blood or tissue splattered on a crime scene. You must be able to hire a company that is equipped with special knowledge to safely handle biohazard materials. The company must have the knowledge what to search for in any give biohazard crime scene. For instance, the company should be able to tell clues such that if there is a bloodstain the size of a thumbnail on a carpet, you can bet that there is about a huge bloodstain underneath. Federal and State laws have their own laws in terms of transport and disposal of biohazard waste. Make sure that the company you hire has all the permits necessary.

It will also be a huge plus if you could hire people who not only has the special trainings but also who have the nature to be sympathetic. If you are close to the victim and have the cleaning done at the behest of the victim’s relatives, it would matter that the cleaners tread the site with some level of respect. It is a common site that family members and loved ones are often there at scene. In general, when looking for a suitable crime scene cleaners, you would take into considerations the kind of situation that the crimes scene presents and the demands that it require. Crime scene cleaning companies handle a wide variety of crime scenes and prices may vary from one to the other crime scene and one to the other company.

Each type of scene requires its own particular demands not only to make the crime scene look clean and neat on the surface but to make it germ free, and clean inside and to make it free from all deadly and infectious substances. The cleanup cost for biohazards may vary depending on degree of the bio hazard(s) on the scene. There may even be a category that changes the cleanup pricing which usually involves decomposing bodies and carcasses. Likewise, a cleanup of chemical hazards vary, depending on the amount of chemical hazards as well as the grades i.e. how hazardous the substance is in terms of human contact. Prices are also determined by the number of hours and personnel that it would to get the crime scene cleaned. In addition, the "gross factor" from crime scene involving death and gore needs to be taken under consideration regarding the chemicals that will be used as opposed to those crimes' that do not have gore involved.

Traumatic Grief

By Nancy Crump

Since the late 1980’s, we have seen an increase in interest and research on the effects of trauma on the grief process. We have learned that the grief process from the sudden, unexpected, and often violent deaths of suicide, homicide, auto accidents, natural disasters, and other types of deaths, is very different from the grief process of those who have died from natural causes, old age, or long-termed illness. Many, if not all, of the deaths faced by Bio Technicians fall into the category of traumatic. Those family members who hire you have usually been touched by the trauma of the death. Understanding the traumatic grief process and its differences from other types of grief may be of some help to you as you deal with these family members.

There are several key elements that make the responses by family members to a traumatic death difficult. First is the suddenness of the death. Family members usually did not have time to prepare themselves for the death and to make the psychological adjustments to cope with the news of the death. Also, the suddenness of the death does not give the family an opportunity to say goodbye to the victim before their death. Second, the violence of the death may leave the family with horrific memories and nightmares that often interfere with the grief process. Third, many of these types of deaths require police intervention and the family is often not given the support, information, and compassion they need at the time. Another element can be the presence of the media at the time of the death, as well as weeks and months later if legal issues follow the death. Most traumatic deaths involve young people who’s parents, grandparents, and siblings may still live. Certainly, the death of a child or young person is very difficult to cope with.

Reactions to a traumatic death can be very different, more intense, and longer lasting than other types of death. The emotions following a traumatic death are often conflicting and intense. There is a tendency to relive the death event over and over in an attempt to make it real. Intrusive thoughts and nightmares are very common. Intense physical responses such as inability to eat or sleep, stomach aches and headaches, muscle tension, high blood pressure and a decrease in the autoimmune system are also common. Many times, the survivors must deal with intense feelings of guilt or remorse, feeling that they were somehow responsible or could have prevented the death “if only”. Family members have the need to tell the story of the death over and over again in an attempt to gain a sense of the reality of the death. They often have an overwhelming need to learn all they can about the circumstances of the death - how the person died, whether they were in pain, did they know they were dying, what were their last words, who saw what happened, and in cases of homicide, who committed the murder. All of these reactions are ways the survivors use to grasp the reality of the death and to begin the grief process.

As Bio Technicians, you are often called by family members or meet them upon arrival to the scene. Understanding some of the dynamics of trauma on the grief process may help as you help the family. Understanding the “normalcy” of the reactions you may see can help you feel more competent and assured to speak with family members without wondering whether or not you are saying the “right” thing. Some suggestions are listed below, but the most important thing is to convey sincerity and compassion to the family. They are very vulnerable and sensitive to words, expressions, and body language. Just make sure that what you say and do is congruent with how you feel or you will come across as insincere and uncaring.

Soon after a traumatic death, most survivors simply need to tell the story to anyone who will listen. It is important for their recovery to be able to do this. If you have time to listen, do so. They are not necessarily looking for any input from you; they just need someone to listen.

Remember that there are two basic rules for grieving people – you don’t hurt yourself or someone else. If, during the conversation, you hear comments that indicate the person is thinking of either, you might suggest they go talk to someone else before making a decision to do something like this. Create a list of counselors, therapists, or mental health centers to hand out at times like these. Take comments about thoughts of suicide seriously and offer to call a friend or family member to be with the person and get them help. Suicide rates often increase after a sudden, traumatic death of a loved one. These are very difficult situations for you as a caregiver, but you need to set limits as to what you can and cannot do. Listening and having resources available are all you need. The survivor needs to take some responsibility for them, and others who are better trained to handle these situations need to be contacted.

Although many reactions may look and feel “crazy”, most are normal reactions to the situation. Again, as long as they don’t hurt themselves or someone else, they are probably reacting normally to an abnormal situation. Helping normalize these reactions is very helpful to the survivor. Encouraging the survivor to talk and to express what they are experiencing is also helpful. Making a simple statement such as, “I think I’d feel the same way if this happened to me”, helps the survivor feel less out of control.

There are many support groups available to survivors that would make a good resource for them. Creating a list of those in your community or in nearby communities is a great gift for survivors. They may not want to attend a support group, but usually someone from the group is always willing to talk to them by telephone or offer assistance.

In the work you do, you may find yourself in situations of dealing with survivors who have needs you do not feel comfortable or competent in dealing with. That’s okay as it is not your responsibility to be all things to all people. However, there are these simple steps you can take to help your families in a meaningful way. You can listen. You can refer. You can offer resources. Having some general knowledge of the traumatic grief process may make you feel more competent in dealing with your families and knowing that you are being supportive and helpful in a meaningful way.

Below are some national organizations that offer support groups in almost every locality. They are specific to either the type of death or the relationship to the person who died and are more appropriate to traumatic deaths. They all have web sites or central telephone numbers that can be contacted for local information.

The Compassionate Friends – for parents’ whose child has died of any cause.
MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Drivers offer support for parents who a drunk driver killed child
Widowed Persons Service – sponsored by AARP for spousal death
SOS – Survivors of Suicide support groups
POMC – Parents of Murdered Children and other victims of homicide.

These and many other groups may be listed at your county’s Victim Assistance Office usually located in the office of the District Attorney. Also, check with your local hospices or hospitals. They offer support groups that are open to the public. Some local churches may also host support groups. As you create your list, don’t try to keep up with the dates and times of group meetings as they change frequently. All you need is the name of the group, a telephone number, and possibly a contact person. Leave it to the survivors to take the responsibility to make the calls on their own behalf.

"Oughta Be A Law" Bills Pass First Hurdle

May 02, 2009 SACRAMENTO
Medical Sharps Waste – SB 486 – Betty Lipkin

Legislation aimed at creating a safe way to handle "sharps" (a type of medical waste that includes syringes and lancets) passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee with a 7-0 vote Monday, gaining broad bipartisan support. SB 486, authored by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee for approval.

Contest winner and San Carlos resident Betty Lipkin suffers from multiple sclerosis. She, along with more than a dozen members of the National Multiple Sclerosis society attended the committee hearing, speaking in support of the bill.

"For anyone with a family member who takes insulin or other medical injections, this idea will seem long overdue," Simitian said. "We tell patients they can´t throw sharps away, but there isn´t an easy, safe solution. SB 486 is a step toward that solution and making it possible to do the right thing, and we´ll all be safer as a result."

SB 486 requires pharmaceutical manufacturers who sell medications that are routinely injected at home to submit plans to the California Integrated Waste Management Board describing how they support and provide safe needle collection and disposal programs for the patients who inject their drugs.

"There has to be a way to get rid of these containers that doesn´t cost an arm and a leg," said Lipkin. "I´ve never been able to find a way to do it, and I think it´s time we do something about it that´s ecologically sound and safe."

It is estimated that over one million people in California use syringes and other sharps for home health care.

The most disgusting court case we've reported on to date

It's not "Pacific Heights," but it's a mighty bizarre landlord-tenant dispute.

Landlord George David has gone to court to evict a tenant who was living amid so much feces and urine in his apartment at 2857 Bush St. that it led an $18,000 bill from a crime-scene cleanup company to abate a health hazard, court documents show.

At least feces weren't involved.
The unsanitary conditions also led to tenant Todd McCullough getting his feet amputated after gout in his leg became infected and he developed gangrene, according to court filings.

But McCullough wants to stay in the apartment he's lived in for the last 16 years and says the landlord is illegally trying to evict him in violation of state law and San Francisco's rent control ordinance.

McCullough says he's being discriminated against because of a disability -- gout, and now his lack of feet -- and that David's true motive is to evict him so he can jack up the $750-a-month rent on a new tenant.

David's attorney, Hilary Hedemark, says the case is straightforward: McCullough "caused a life-threatening biohazard to exist at the premises" in violation of his lease, ignored requests to clean it up and failed to pay rent.

An upstairs neighbor complained about what they thought was a dead animal smell, and another neighbor who went to check on McCullough on Jan. 16 said inside the apartment "the stench was unbearable," court documents show.

There were feces smeared on the walls, floor, doors, counters, mattress, sofa and throughout the bathroom, according to the clean-up company. A neighbor saw feces smeared about and what appeared to be plastic bags, glass jars and a trash can all filled with urine.

Beyond the clean up, there was more than $10,000 in repairs to the floors, appliances, windows and elsewhere, David's attorneys say.

McCullough contends he was unable to maintain the property as he wanted because of his gout, and says David "greatly exaggerated the degree of damage."

The city's Health Department issued two notices to abate unsanitary conditions, though, and photos in the court file are not pretty.

The trial starts Monday.

Posted By: John Coté (Email) | May 01 2009 at 11:33 AM

RELEASE: Statement from Town and Gown Players

ATHENS (MyFOX ATLANTA) - The three people we lost yesterday were a part of the rich 50-year history of this theater and, more than that, were vital members of the Town and Gown family.

Ben Teague, loving husband of UGA's Dr. Fran Teague for more than 40 years, was not only a friend but also a father figure to all at the theater. One would be hard pressed to find a Town and Gowner who had not learned at least one life lesson from this wise and kind hearted man. His wife wishes to say, "Yesterday Ben was murdered, which is hard to comprehend and impossible to accept. It was a beautiful day, however, and he was in his favorite place with the people he loved." Ben was a translator of German, Russian and English.

Marie Bruce was the binding force that held the Town and Gown community together. Having worked with Town and Gown for over 20 years, at one time or another she served in every capacity at the theater, artistically and administratively, from leading lady to president of the board to chief cook and bottle washer. A local attorney, Marie was the mother of two young children.

A gentle presence, Tom Tanner breathed life into every corner of Town and Gown through his quiet diligence and astounding creativity - most would call him genius. Father of an equally amazing daughter, Tom would tell you that while he enjoyed his work as director of the Regional Dynamics Economic Modeling Laboratory at Clemson University, his heart lived and thrived in the theater.

Ben, Marie and Tom were a part of our family, and as painful as their loss is for us, we know it is even more painful for their families. We want to extend our deepest sympathy to their immediate family and close friends outside the theater community. There are no words we can use to adequately express our grief.

We would like to thank the Athens Police department and the media for their respectful treatment of this tragedy. We want to thank the American Bio Recovery Association and A1 BIO-Clean Service for the generous donation of their services in our time of need. We also want to thank the Athens Community for their support. This tragedy effects everyone in the community in some way, and we know you share in our loss. We ask that the media continue to be respectful of our privacy during this difficult time.

Custodian’s stress-disorder suit restored

Meghann M. Cuniff / Staff writer

A custodian who sued her school district after being forced to clean up the bloody scene of a student’s suicide had her lawsuit reinstated Tuesday by the Washington Court of Appeals.

Debbie Rothwell, who still works at Lakeside High School in Nine Mile Falls, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a lawsuit filed in May 2007 by her lawyer, William Powell, of Spokane. The 16-year-old student shot himself in the head inside the school’s main entrance in 2004. The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2008 by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt, who ruled the incident was covered by the Industrial Insurance Act.

But the Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, disagreed and reinstated the suit.

“There are people who do clean up the mess after one of these horrible murders or suicides happen,” Powell said Tuesday, referring to private professionals. “But the superintendent in this case chose not to do that. He should have known better.”

Along with former Superintendent Michael Green, now superintendent of the Woodland School District in Western Washington, the lawsuit names the Nine Miles Falls School District, Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer, two sheriff’s detectives and an unidentified man as defendants.

None was available for comment. Like most civil suits in Washington, the complaint seeks unspecified damages.

Rothwell’s complaints center around her task of cleaning up the suicide scene, then being asked to move a backpack she later learned belonged to the victim and contained a suspicious device that authorities detonated using a robot.

She stayed at work until after 4 a.m., cleaning the mess of blood, brain and bone alone, becoming “emotionally distraught and physically ill” before returning to the school less than four hours later at Green’s orders to serve cookies and coffee to grieving students and keep the media from the school, according to the suit.

At issue in the court decisions was whether Rothwell’s claim of post-traumatic stress disorder fell under the industrial injury act, which prohibits lawsuits based on industry injury or occupational disease.

Judges John A. Schultheis and Dennis J. Sweeney ruled it didn’t because it wasn’t the result of one work order. Her trauma grew over several days, according to their written opinion. Judge Teresa C. Kulik dissented.

Cleanup completed at Civic Association

April 5, 2009

Cleanup has been completed at the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, where a gunman killed 13 people and injured four before taking his own life Friday.

The American Bio-Recovery Association, a non-profit international association of crime and trauma scene professionals, said Sunday that the bio-recovery cleaning was complete. The Ipswich, Mass.-based group provided the service at no cost.

Two member companies, Disaster Clean Up of Endwell and the Bio-Recovery Corporation of New York City, donated labor and supplies to remediate the scene with a crew of six technicians.

Bio-Recovery Corporation Aids In Binghamton Crime Scene Cleanup

PRESS RELEASE
April 5th 2009

Bio-Recovery Corporation of New York City and Diaster Scene Cleanup of Endwell, NY responded to the American Civic Association on April 5th 2009 at the request of the American Bio-Recovery Association to aid the American Civic Association and the entire Binghamton community with the cleanup of the crime scene left in the aftermath of Fridays multiple homicide, suicide at their offices located at 131 Front St Binghamton, NY.

At the request of Dale Cillian, President of the non profit American Bio-Recovery Association (ABRA), the two named companies above provided all the labor and equipment to complete this cleanup in one day at no cost to the American Civic Association. "I couldn't have done this without you guys," stated Andrew Baranoski, Executive Director of the non-profit American Civic Association.

The American Bio Recovery Association, an international association of Crime & Trauma Scene Cleanup professionals strives to make these services available to all that require it throughout the United States.

Company tackles the cleanup jobs no one else wants -- bodies of the dead

Andrew Jacobs, New York Times

New York -- It would be safe to assume that the man in 6-F did not have many friends or relatives, or at least none who called or visited regularly. No one, not even his neighbors, noticed his absence for a number of weeks. That is, not until a putrid odor began filling the hallways of the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City.

Consuelo Sanchez, 55, whose apartment is adjacent to 6-F, complained about the smell for weeks before housing authority officials unlocked the door to discover the decomposed body on a sofa, the television still burbling away. The occupant, an 86-year-old retired transit worker, had died a month earlier of natural causes. "I kept telling them, 'The man is dead,' '' Sanchez said. "I was hoping I wasn't right."

The medical examiner removed the bulk of the remains, but it was up to Ronald Gospodarski to take care of the rest, most of them viscous and indescribably malodorous. The man in 6-F had largely soaked into the sofa cushions as his body decayed, and his gastric acid had melted through the plastic covering on the upholstery.

"I don't care if you're black, white, rich or poor, whether you live in the projects or a penthouse, everyone smells the same when they die," Gospodarski said as he scraped a caramel-colored goo off the floor of Apartment 6-F this spring.

Gospodarski, a paramedic for 23 years, is what is known as a bio-recovery technician, a highly trained, extremely efficient, self-employed house-cleaner of sorts whose specialty is removing the unpleasant aftereffects of suicides, attempted suicides, shotgun murders, accidental impalements and, in the case of lonely, unnoticed passings like that of the man in 6-F, "decomps."

In a city like New York, Gospodarski and his six employees are rarely idle. In recent months, they have mopped up a mailroom clerk who jumped from the 38th floor of an office building, sterilized a piece of filtration equipment that took the life of a water company employee and cleaned up after a boyfriend put a bullet through the head of a Staten Island mother as she made shrimp gumbo in her kitchen.

His company, Bio-Recovery Corp., is the only business based in New York that specializes in such matters. There are a couple of similar cleanup companies with offices outside New York, but Bio-Recovery dominates the business in the city, mainly through word of mouth. It operates from a building that sits across the street from a cemetery in Queens.

"Everyone is dying to see us," said Gospodarski, 43, a jovial, talkative man who requires little prompting to recount some of his more memorable jobs, all of which he records in photographs that he keeps on his computer to show visitors.

It was Gospodarski who dealt with the mayhem of the Wendy's restaurant massacre in 2000 that left five people dead in Queens and the triple murder that took place a year later above the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan. Bio-Recovery also tackled the anthrax contamination of the New York Post and ABC News and the sterilization of the Regal Princess, a cruise ship whose passengers were sickened by the Norwalk virus in 2003.

But the meat-and-potatoes of Gospodarski's business is unheralded deaths, like that of a troubled teenager who shot himself in the basement of his parents' Richmond Hill home in September or the quiet demise of elderly New Yorkers.

In the case of the man in 6-F, his extended period of decay fouled every item in his apartment, requiring that everything, even sections of the floor, be removed and discarded.

"I've had guys left dead for months, where fluid seeped down six floors and everything had to be torn out," Gospodarski said. "You can't leave one drop of blood or body fluid or the place will stink."

In most cases, he said, postmortem cleanup is quick and simple -- wiping down blood-splattered walls, ripping out soiled carpet -- but it is a job that would undoubtedly prove burdensome to grieving relatives.

"Most of the time we're simply providing psychological comfort," Gospodarski said. "People who commit suicide don't think about what they're going to leave behind."

Bio-Recovery's services start at $600 for cases of minimal decomposition and reach into the thousands for more extensive mayhem. The company generally uses industrial-strength cleanser, but its newest service involves superheating an entire apartment, which kills odor-producing microbes and eliminates the need to throw every last painting, book and piece of electronic equipment in the trash. The minimum cost for that procedure is $3,000.

The New York State Crime Victims Board will pay up to $2,500 for cleaning up after a homicide, and many car insurance policies cover the price of restoring the interior of vehicles whose passengers wind up on the wrong end of a gun. Gospodarski said he never turns anyone away, even if the client cannot pay the fee.

"We never leave anyone hanging," he said without apparent irony. Nearly all of his jobs come from referrals from police officers, prosecutors and paramedics. He does not, he said, call grieving families whose loss he gleans from newspaper accounts.

Bio-Recovery started in Gospodarski's apartment in 1998. After his years as a paramedic, Gospodarski said, he was bothered by what he saw on the job.

Ambulance crews would take away a body and leave behind a disturbing pile of latex gloves, syringes and blood-soaked gauze. The detectives who often followed would ring the scene with yellow police tape and spray fingerprint dust around every light switch and door knob.

"I've seen the medical examiner leave behind pieces of brain," he said. "Grieving families shouldn't have to deal with that."

Gospodarski and his crew are alternately philosophical and vulgar, cracking jokes about the gore in their midst, or about the housekeeping habits of the deceased.

Last week, as they cleaned up the blood of Chantel Curtis, the Staten Island woman who was shot by a boyfriend who then killed himself, Gospodarski could not help noticing the details of her life: the treadmill in the living room, the vase of roses on the table and the joyful clutter of children's toys.

"Why can't these people just kill themselves and leave everyone else alone?" he asked, his eyes pausing on a photograph of the victim and her young son.

It comes as some relief to Bio-Recovery's workers that many cleanups are limited to tiled bathrooms. A fair number of suicides are carried out in bathtubs, and many elderly people, beset by illness, will retreat to a bathroom to die, often on the toilet, the workers said.

Manny Sosa, like many employees, said he had become inured to death. He once retched during a cleanup that required him to handle entrails, but by now he can eat lunch on the job. "Sometimes we play detective and try to figure out what happened," said Sosa, 26. "I actually look forward to coming to work."

While they may be accustomed to gore, even the hardiest among the crew were unnerved by a recent job that required them to clean out a house in the Bronx that had been used for Santeria, the South American and Caribbean religion that involves the ritual slaughter of animals. The practitioners had defaulted on their mortgage, leaving the bank to deal with whatever mysteries lurked in the dank basement.

Gospodarski's workers, dressed in biohazard suits, sifted through soil and discovered animal hoofs, desiccated snakes, razor blades and bottles of liquid marked with the international symbol for poison. The workers, most of them from Latin America and the West Indies, were clearly scared. At one point, Sosa unearthed what appeared to be a clump of human hair, and the crew's collective shudder was palpable. "I don't like this one bit," Sosa said. "I'd rather be dealing with a gunshot victim."

The summer months were unusually slow, and Gospodarski said he was looking forward to winter, when violence tends to move indoors.

Bloodshed is most common in the summer, but there is little money to be made from gunplay that stains the pavement. With winter, however, people end up packed into tiny apartments. Throw boredom, drugs and weapons into the mix, and you have the potential makings for a bio-recovery bonanza.

"When cabin fever sets in, we get a lot of calls," he said. "All you can do is hope for a heavy snowstorm."


This article appeared on page A - 22 of the San Francisco Chronicle

The Top 13 Worst Jobs with the Best Pay

These are dirty jobs and somebody has to do them. At least they get paid well for their efforts
Think you have a lousy job? You're not alone. So do about half of your fellow workers—and about a quarter of them are only showing up to collect a paycheck, according to a survey conducted by London-based market information company TNS. Grumbling over the size of that check is common, too. About two-thirds of workers believe they don't get paid enough, says TNS—even though many of them may actually be overpaid, compared to average compensation data

Crime-Scene Cleaner
Average pay: $50,400
If crime-scene cleanup was just wiping blood off the floors—well, that would be easy. But CSI fans with get-rich-quick dreams should note the job involves more than handiness with a mop and a tolerance for the smell of decomposing flesh. Getting rid of bodily fluids typically calls for more rough-and-ready methods, such as ripping up carpet, tile, and baseboards. It also sometimes means working in confined spaces (if someone was electrocuted in an attic, for example). And when tearing up old houses, workers face exposure to hazards such as lead paint and asbestos—not to mention the combustible chemicals involved in drug-lab abatement.

Crime Scene Cleanup: What It Involves

The Restoration Resource

A crime scene cleanup service is not without its complications. Crime scene cleaning encompasses restoring the crime scene to its original state. When a crime is usually discovered, crime scene cleaners are not called until after officers of the law, like the crime scene investigators, have done their jobs first and have given the go ahead for the cleaners to come in. If you intend to hire a crime scene cleanup company, you must make sure that they are well equipped and fit right to get the job done. A crime scene presents challenging conditions.

The Use Of Protective Gears:
Crime scenes can very well involve the use of hazardous or deadly substances. For safety reasons then, it has become imperative that crime scene cleaners use protective clothing, in addition to protective tools and gadgets. You must see to it that they have all the necessary protective gears and gadgets. The protective clothing can consist of disposable gloves and suits. A disposable gear is preferred nowadays since it offers the best protection against contamination. You use it one time and get rid of it. That way, the dangers of contamination is virtually brought down to zero percent. Protective clothing extends to respirators and the use of heavy-duty industrial or chemical-spill protective boots.

Among the gadgets that a crime scene cleaning company must have are special brushes, special sprayers, and wet vacuum. These special tools ensure added protection against getting into contact with the hazard could very well be present in the crime scene. There is large, special equipment such as a mounted steam injection tool that is designed to sanitize dried up biohazard materials such as scattered flesh and brain. You would also need to check if they have the specialized tank for chemical treatments and industrial strength waste containers to collect biohazard waste.

Of course, any crime scene clean up must have the usual cleaning supplies common to all cleaning service companies. There are the buckets, mops, brushes and spray bottles. For cleaning products, you should check if they use industrial cleaning products. A crime scene cleaning company must have these on their lists:

1 - Disinfectants including hydrogen peroxide and bleaches - The kinds that the hospitals used are commonly acceptable.

2 - Enzyme solvers for cleaning blood stains. It also kills viruses and bacteria.

3 - Odor removers such as foggers, ozone machines, and deodorizers

4 - Handy tools for breaking and extending such as saws, sledgehammers, and ladders

Established crime scene operators also equip themselves with cameras and take pictures of the crime scene before commencing work which. The pictures taken may prove useful for legal matters and insurance purposes. You never know which.

Needless to say, a specially fitted form of transportation and proper waste disposal is also needed. These requirements are specific. As you can imagine, crime scene cleaning is in a different category on its own. A home cleaning or janitorial service company may not be able to cope up with the demands of a crime scene. A crime scene cleanup service requires many special gears and tools that a home cleaning or a janitorial service company does not usually have or does not require. Crime scene cleaning if not done correctly can expose the public to untold hazards.

What Else To Look For In A Crime Scene Cleanup Company
You may also want to hire a company that has established itself. An experienced company with a strong reputation is always a plus but it could be expensive too. You will do well to balance your needs with what is your budget. There are several companies that offer specific prices such as for death scene clean up categories and suicide clean up categories. Most companies own a website and have round the clock customer service as receptionists.

When looking for a suitable crime scene cleaning service, among the first things you need to do is to scout for price quotes. Crime scene cleanup services usually provide quote after they have examined the crime scene and then they give you a definite quote. Factors that are usually considered include the number of personnel that will be needed to get the job done. It also includes the amount of time that might be needed. The nature and amount of the waste materials that need to be disposed will also be factored in. You can be sure that the more sophisticated equipments needed the more expensive it will get.

Crime Scene Cleanup And Your Insurance
For homeowners, the best approach is always to make sure that crime scene cleanup services clauses and provisions are written down on the contracts or policies. The inclusion of crime cleanup services clauses is very common and has become standard clause in most homeowner’s policy. Make sure that you are covered for this unforeseen event. Make sure that your policy directs the crime scene cleaning company to transact directly with the homeowner insurance company. A crime scene cleaning service is usually a standard clause in many homeowners’ insurance clause. These companies often do the paperwork in behalf of clients.

If for some reason you do not have such coverage by any policies relating to crime scene cleanup on your home, there are ways to keep your expenses controlled.

Finding the right company can be very taxing, especially that you have to deal with the emotional stress stemming from the crime itself, especially with a crime scene involving death.

There are many crime scene cleanup companies in operation nowadays. There are reliable professionals that you can hire and prices are relatively competitive. As of recently, crime-scene cleanup services can cost up to $600 for an hour of their service. A homicide case alone involving a single room and a huge amount of blood can cost about $1,000 to $3,000.

In recent years, crime scene cleaning has come to be known as, "Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination or CTS. Basically, CTS is a special form of crime scene cleaning focusing on decontamination of the crime scene from hazardous substances such as those resulting from violent crimes or those involving chemical contaminations such as methamphetamine labs or anthrax production. This type of service is particularly common when violent crimes are committed in a home. It is rare that the residents move out of the home after it has become a scene of a crime. Most often, the residents just opt to have it cleaned up. That is why, it is very important to hire the best crime scene cleaning company out there. The place needs to be totally free from contamination of any kind. You have to make sure that the company is able to remove all traces of the violent crime that took place. This includes cleaning biohazards that are sometimes invisible to the untrained eye.

Legally speaking, federal laws state that all bodily fluids are deemed biohazards and you should make sure that the cleanup service company you hire understands this and includes it in the cleanup. These things appear as blood or tissue splattered on a crime scene. You must be able to hire a company that is equipped with special knowledge to safely handle biohazard materials. The company must have the knowledge what to search for in any give biohazard crime scene. For instance, the company should be able to tell clues such that if there is a bloodstain the size of a thumbnail on a carpet, you can bet that there is about a huge bloodstain underneath. Federal and State laws have their own laws in terms of transport and disposal of biohazard waste. Make sure that the company you hire has all the permits necessary.

It will also be a huge plus if you could hire people who not only has the special trainings but also who have the nature to be sympathetic. If you are close to the victim and have the cleaning done at the behest of the victim’s relatives, it would matter that the cleaners tread the site with some level of respect. It is a common site that family members and loved ones are often there at scene. In general, when looking for a suitable crime scene cleaners, you would take into considerations the kind of situation that the crimes scene presents and the demands that it require. Crime scene cleaning companies handle a wide variety of crime scenes and prices may vary from one to the other crime scene and one to the other company.

Each type of scene requires its own particular demands not only to make the crime scene look clean and neat on the surface but to make it germ free, and clean inside and to make it free from all deadly and infectious substances. The cleanup cost for biohazards may vary depending on degree of the bio hazard(s) on the scene. There may even be a category that changes the cleanup pricing which usually involves decomposing bodies and carcasses. Likewise, a cleanup of chemical hazards vary, depending on the amount of chemical hazards as well as the grades i.e. how hazardous the substance is in terms of human contact. Prices are also determined by the number of hours and personnel that it would to get the crime scene cleaned. In addition, the "gross factor" from crime scene involving death and gore needs to be taken under consideration regarding the chemicals that will be used as opposed to those crimes' that do not have gore involved.

Risks of Using In-house Employees for Environmental Cleanups

By Gerard M. Giordano, Esq.

In an attempt to save money, property owners may be tempted to use their own Employees to clean up contamination at their facilities in order to comply with state or federal environmental laws. However, there may not be any real savings because when property owners (as employers)do commit to such a venture,they must comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA)regulations that may be applicable. These are designed to protect employees from occupational injuries and illnesses,and failure to comply with these regulations could result in fines that may offset any savings.

A property owner who orders his employees to clean up or work with hazardous substances must comply with a number of precautionary regulations. The most comprehensive is 29 CFR 1910.120, which deals with hazardous waste operations and emergency response. An employer is required to develop and put into writing a safety and health program for any employees engaged in hazardous waste cleanup operations.

The elements of an effective program include requiring an employer to identify and evaluate specific hazards and to determine the appropriate safety and health control procedures to protect employees before any work is initiated. Likewise, protective equipment must be utilized by employees during the initial site entry and, if required,during subsequent work at the site. The employer must also periodically monitor employees who may be exposed to hazardous substances in excess of OSHA ’s regulations.

Once the presence and concentration of specific hazardous substances and health hazards have been established, employees involved in the cleanup operations must be informed of any risks associated with their work. Under certain ircumstances,regular ongoing medical surveillance of employees by a licensed physician, and without cost to the employees or lost pay, may be required.

Numerous other safeguards are also required by OSHA. For example, OSHA’s hazardous communications program, 29 CFR 1910.120, requires an employer to establish and implement a hazard communication program if, during the course of the cleanup, employees may be exposed to hazardous chemicals.

The requirements are essentially the same as those in workplaces where employees are routinely exposed to hazardous chemicals. The program must include container labeling, production of material safety data sheets and employee training. The employer must also provide a full description of the OSHA compliance program to employees, contractors and subcontractors involved with the cleanup operations as well as OSHA,and to any other federal,state or local agency with regulatory authority over the cleanup.

Regulation 29 CFR 1910.120 also requires an employer that retains the services of a contractor or subcontractor to inform them of any identified potential hazards of the cleanup operations. Generally, it is the involvement of employees that triggers an employer’s obligations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. If contractors were retained, it would be the contractors’ responsibility to comply with these OSHA requirements on behalf of their employees, assuming that the employer
retaining the contractor has neither employees involved in the cleanup nor employees potentially exposed to health hazards arising from the cleanup.

In addition to the contractor’s required compliance with OSHA regulations, it is imperative that a property owner include in any agreement with the contractor that the contractor must comply with all pertinent OSHA regulations. If possible,the agreement should also provide for indemnifications from the contractor to the property owner for claims arising from the cleanup. These indemnifications will be important if the employees of the contractor are injured or subsequently become ill because of such work. The indemnifications should survive the completion of the work. These precautions will help insulate the property owner from both governmental actions and potential third-party claims.

Failure to comply with OSHA regulations on the part of the property owner who uses his own employees to perform a cleanup or work with hazardous substances may result in substantial penalties. Under OSHA, fines can be levied for each violation found by an inspector. These violations can result in non-serious, serious or willful violations with penalties as high as $70,000 for each violation. If a subsequent inspection is performed and violations are found which have not been corrected from an original inspection,daily penalties could be levied resulting in substantial fines.

Compliance with OSHA regulations should be a factor when a property owner decides to use in-house employees for cleanups. In the long run, there may not be any savings to the employer. Furthermore, because of the employer’s lack of familiarity with the OSHA regulations governing the cleanup of hazardous sites,the employer could be subject to fines as a result of its failure to comply with the OSHA regulations.

Therefore, it may be prudent in the long run to retain a company whose business is devoted to doing only cleanups. This company will have the expertise and continuing obligations to protect its employees.

Gerard Giordano is special counsel at the law firm of Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard, P.A., based in Hackensack, NJ. He is a member of the firm’s Environmental Department, and his practice focuses particularly on OSHA matters. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Giordano worked at the U.S. Department of Labor – Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as an industrial hygiene compliance officer.

Life of Grime: Chris Mendoza cleans up crime scenes in the South Bay

By Hugh Biggar

Life can indeed be nasty, brutish and short. Just ask Crime Scene Cleaners Inc., a company whose business is taking care of life's messes. In blood-red letters, its pick-up trucks advertise its services accidental death, homicides, suicides call 1.800.357.6731.
"People are animals," Neal Smither, founder and president of the private company, says.

He should know. Since 1996, Crime Scene Cleaners has thrived on cleaning up crime scenes, suicides, houses filled with waste and the occasional whale.

"We're not gore-mongers, it's a work proposition," Smither says of the business. "But we don't turn anything down, unless it's off the chart severity."

"You can't put a price on that service," says John Hirokawa, a captain with the Santa Clara County sheriffs' office.

Chris Mendoza, a Crime Scene Cleaners employee in Santa Clara County, also stresses the service side of the work.

"People tell me, if it weren't for you, I don't know what we would do," he says.

Smither, 38, founded Crime Scene Cleaners in 1996 after renting the movie Pulp Fiction. At that point in his life, he had dropped out of Soquel High School to surf, then drifted from the Navy to selling bonds. He was living in San Francisco and considering mortuary school when Pulp Fiction changed his life.

"It was an epiphany," he says of a scene where two gangsters call in a professional known as The Wolf to help clean a bloody car. "I thought to myself, that's a great idea."

Smither placed classified ads in newspapers and created fliers to distribute to Bay Area police stations. After a month, Smither got his first call from the sister of a cancer patient who committed suicide in Marin County.

"I didn't know if I could do it," Smither says now. "I didn't know what to expect or what to charge." Smither bought basic cleaning supplies at a drugstore and arrived with little more than a strong stomach and a willingness to try.

"I remember thinking, this isn't so bad, and it went quickly," he says. He made $175 in an hour and thought, "I'm onto something."

Smither's first wife divorced him because she was embarrassed by the work. He later married his banker. But Crime Scene Cleaners has since boomed by providing a service traditionally performed by police officers, police mechanics and family and friends. Due to blood-borne pathogens such as hepatitis C found at crime scenes, the business has also been federally regulated since 1998.

Headquartered in Orinda, Crime Scene Cleaners now has 18 offices throughout the United States; the Bay Area, and especially Santa Clara County, provides most of its local business.

"We routinely call them out," said Lt. John Carr, head of the San Jose traffic investigations unit. "Those folks are out there, scrubbing on their hands and knees. They leave nothing."

Carr said the department used Crime Scene Cleaners in Almaden Valley to clean up after a fatal traffic accident last October.

"We've used the service for quite awhile, ever since AIDS and air-borne pathogens became an issue," Hirokawa says. "It's a safety issue. We used to wash the cars ourselves with rags, hoses and hand sprayers," he says of vomit and other bodily fluids from passengers. These sorts of accidents are not uncommon in police cars (and why the cars have no carpeting). "We would flush it into the drains or put stuff in the garbage, but you can't do that now."

Given the safety concerns and regulations, Crime Scene Cleaners employees receive six months of intensive training in biohazards prior to employment. On the job, they don masks and white suits that cover them from head to toe. Perched on ladders or crouched down on all fours, they scrub with an enzyme that breaks down proteins and sanitizes.

Police officers have traditionally done their own cleaning, but because of greater understanding about blood pathogens, the San Jose police department has given over many of its cleaning duties to Crime Scene Cleaners.

"In the old days, we would take a hose and wash it down the drain," said Sgt. Steve Gracie, supervisor of the crime scene unit. "Attitudes have changed. We didn't think of blood as a biohazard. Now, people treat it differently. It could be infected with disease."

Officers will always be exposed to bloodied and coughing members of the public, but Gracie said that being able to depend on Crime Scene Cleaners to clean up public spaces and their offices, when it warrants, alleviates their job.

"It's better for the officer and for the community," he said. "Crime Scene Cleaners have been very good for us."

It's not always the gory things that get the cleaners out, but definitely the messy ones.

"We used them in our office a few weeks ago, when there was an elderly witness who was inebriated and urinated in the chair," Gracie said.

In addition to cleaning police cars, Crime Scene Cleaners' work includes cleaning up after gang disputes, cleaning waste-filled houses and cleaning motel rooms used by methamphetamine users.

This is especially true when the unusual comes calling. A few years ago Crime Scene Cleaners got a call from officials in Fremont after a dead whale washed up in a flood channel and got stuck. Workers from Crime Scene Cleaners used construction excavation equipment to remove it and buried the whale in a 300-foot pit nearby.

Such situations are typical of the fast thinking the work requires. "I'm improvising all the time," Smither says during an interview in between fielding calls.

One is from a motel employee in Georgia.

"Where is the manager?" Smither barks. "Get him on the phone."

There is a call from one of his employees on a job in Idaho.

"That's going to take three dumpsters, Max," he advises. "Go look at the dumpsters behind a grocery store and find a number to call."

And there is even a call from the local cops. On this morning, the Orinda police need some help with blood found on stairs.

Mendoza, 23, the cleaner largely responsible for Santa Clara County, also constantly improvises and is on call 24 hours a day from Friday through Tuesday.

His workday can include handling corpses to taking apart a room where a crime took place, removing anything--tiling, sinks, mirrors--that could remind someone of an unfortunate incident.

His biggest dislike is the creepy crawlies. "The worst thing for me is the scabies," Mendoza says. "You find them in the squad cars from people's clothes and stuff," he says of the little bugs he finds so disgusting.

"This job teaches you a lot about life," he says.

In addition to the dirty work of cleaning and hauling (waste is either taken to an incinerator in the East Bay or encapsulated in foam and taken to a dump), cleaners also must be able to handle grieving family members and to negotiate prices.

"You can't be a [weak-minded] in this job," Smither says. Most employees generally last about eight months, he says. "You have to be able to go in, assess the scene, use sensitivity and negotiate."

Mendoza, who previously sold electronics at the Santana Row Best Buy, hopes to be an exception to the eight-month standard.

"This is something you can really grow with because most people can't do it," he says. On days he is not working he even volunteers to help clean the morgue as a favor to his friends there. "It isn't disgusting and doesn't bother me at all," he says, "although I do sometimes get nightmares."

Regardless of the assignment, in the Bay Area the work is completed quickly and thoroughly. Both Smither and Mendoza pride themselves on this point.

"Same day, always," Smither says.

In the Bay Area, which for Crime Scene Cleaners stretches from Watsonville to the Napa Valley, this translates into responding to a call within 60 minutes. Nationally, Crime Scene Cleaners responds to calls within 24 hours. It also helped with relief efforts in New Orleans.

"You have to always wear the proper stuff and can't be lazy and cheap shot it," Mendoza says. This includes wearing protective body suits and respirators if necessary, and ripping out floors if needed to clean beneath crime scenes--particularly important for getting rid of odors.

"Once we are done, people are not going to see anything," he says. "People say thanks ... and I hope we never meet again."

Staff writer Michele Leung contributed to this article.





Copyright © Knight Ridder

The economic cost of methamphetamine use in the United States

Medical Research News

The economic cost of methamphetamine use in the United States reached $23.4 billion in 2005, including the burden of addiction, premature death, drug treatment and many other aspects of the drug, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
The RAND study is the first effort to construct a comprehensive national assessment of the costs of the methamphetamine problem in the United States.

"Our findings show that the economic burden of methamphetamine abuse is substantial," said Nancy Nicosia, the study's lead author and an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

Although methamphetamine causes some unique harms, the study finds that many of the primary issues that account for the burden of methamphetamine use are similar to those identified in economic assessments of other illicit drugs.

Given the uncertainty in estimating the costs of methamphetamine use, researchers created a range of estimates. The lowest estimate for the cost of methamphetamine use in 2005 was $16.2 billion, while $48.3 billion was the highest estimate. Researchers' best estimate of the overall economic burden of methamphetamine use is $23.4 billion

The study was sponsored by the Meth Project Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to reducing first-time methamphetamine use. Additional support was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"We commissioned this study to provide decision makers with the best possible estimate of the financial burden that methamphetamine use places on the American public," said Tom Siebel, founder and chairman of the Meth Project. "This is the first comprehensive economic impact study ever to be conducted with the rigor of a traditional cost of illness study, applied specifically to methamphetamine. It provides a conservative estimate of the total cost of meth, and it reinforces the need to invest in serious prevention programs that work."

The RAND analysis found that nearly two-thirds of the economic costs caused by methamphetamine use resulted from the burden of addiction and an estimated 900 premature deaths among users in 2005. The burden of addiction was measured by quantifying the impact of the lower quality of life experienced by those addicted to the drug.

Crime and criminal justice expenses account for the second-largest category of economic costs, according to researchers. These costs include the burden of arresting and incarcerating drug offenders, as well as the costs of additional non-drug crimes caused by methamphetamine use, such as thefts committed to support a drug habit.

Other costs that significantly contribute to the RAND estimate include lost productivity, the expense of removing children from their parents' homes because of methamphetamine use and spending for drug treatment.

One new category of cost captured in the analysis is the expense associated with the production of methamphetamine. Producing methamphetamine requires toxic chemicals that can result in fire, explosions and other events. The resulting costs include the injuries suffered by emergency personnel and other victims, and efforts to clean up the hazardous waste generated by the production process.

Researchers caution that their estimates are in some cases based on an emerging understanding of methamphetamine's role in these harms and should be further refined as understanding of these issues matures. The RAND report also identifies costs that cannot yet be adequately quantified.

"Estimates of the economic costs of illicit drug use can highlight the consequences of illegal drug use on our society and focus attention on the primary drivers of those costs," Nicosia said. "But more work is needed to identify areas where interventions to reduce these harms could prove most effective."

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive substance that can be taken orally, injected, snorted or smoked. While national surveys suggest that methamphetamine use is far from common, there is evidence that the harms of methamphetamine may be concentrated in certain regions. One indicator of the problem locally is treatment admissions. Methamphetamine was the primary drug of abuse in 59 percent of the treatment admissions in Hawaii in 2004 and accounted for 38 percent of such admissions in Arizona in 2004.

Crime Scene Steri Clean-Cory Chalmers

Sunshine Cleaning (Release date March 13th 2009)

Sunshine Cleaning is a comedy-drama starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

Sunshine Cleaning follows an average family that finds the path to its dreams in an unlikely setting. A single mom and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around - once the high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback, Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) now finds herself a thirty something single mother working as a maid. Her sister Norah (Emily Blunt) is still living at home with their dad Joe (Alan Arkin), a salesman with a lifelong history of ill-fated get rich quick schemes. Desperate to get her son into a better school, Rose persuades Norah to go into the crime scene clean-up business with her to make some quick cash. In no time, the girls are up to their elbows in murders, suicides and other…specialized situations. As they climb the ranks in a very dirty job, the sisters find a true respect for one another and the closeness they have always craved finally blossoms. By building their own improbable business, Rose and Norah open the door to the joys and challenges of being there for one another—no matter what—while creating a brighter future for the entire Lorkowski family.

Here’s the Sunshine Cleaning Trailer, hit HQ in the menu bottom right for improved quality. The movie is due out March 13, 2009.