Not the house maid, that’s for sure.
by Breck Porter, Gulf Coast Police News
Published December 2006
Cleaning up a crime scene is not a pleasant task and it is not something that typical house cleaning services, maintenance people or other untrained persons should be doing.
Who would even ask their house maid to mop up after a shooting or knifing where large amounts of human blood had been spilled or splattered all over the walls and ceilings? What about a place where a suicide had occurred or a person had just died a natural death but had not been discovered for a week or more? These are the types of calls that are most offensive and unpleasant for police and first responders.
“We do a lot of suicides and decompositions where they may have laid there for a week or two before they were discovered,” says Robert Demaret, owner of USA DECON, a professional trauma/crime scene remediation company. “By then all the body fluids have leaked out and they have bloated and sometimes they pop. Of course when they decompose the odor is a serious problem.”
Why call companies like USA DECON to do these often sickening jobs? Federal regulations specifically provide that an employee cannot be placed in a position and be exposed to blood spills with first fulfilling training requirements. Financial penalties to the employer for the violation of the standard are very severe.
It is very common for those contemplating suicide to find a place away from their home to do the dirty deed. Hotel or motel rooms are popular places chosen by many to end their lives. Some use firearms, others overdose on drugs or take poisons. After death they may lay in the room for two or three days before being discovered and by then they are “ripe”, to use a term frequently used by those who are dispatched to these scenes.
“The first thing we do is decontaminate all the biological issues” says Demaret. “We don’t know the dead person so we treat them all as if they had aids and hepatitis and everything under the sun.
“We use EPA approved, hospital grade disinfectant and we spray all the body fluids down first so that any virus’ that were in those body fluids are dead. The body is usually gone when we get there and all that remains are the body fluids. We clean all that up and deodorize the house.
We have special ozone machines, odor neutralizing chemicals and we use different methods depending on the severity of the case. We remove all the bio hazards and deodorize the premises.
Demaret continues, “In the case where carpet is contaminated we take it up with the pad. Often the fluids get into the concrete slab under the carpet pad. The concrete is porous so we remove what we can and let it dry then reseal the concrete before new carpet is put down.
We have done second floor apartments where the fluid has actually gone through the floor, through the insulation, through the sheetrock of the ceiling of the downstairs apartment and started dripping from the ceiling.
In that case we must cut the floor out of the upstairs apartment, remove the insulation then cut the sheetrock out of the downstairs apartment and clean the rafters.
We can’t cut the rafters out because they are load bearing, but we clean and decontaminate them and reseal them. That establishes a physical barrier.
“We can’t do much for stains but we make sure there are no viruses or disease left the in the area. We put up a physical barrier and then new sheetrock and carpet can be installed.
Unattended deaths where bodies have decomposed comprise about 50% of our work. Another 40% are suicides where there is also decomposition or a massive blood spill and body fragments, and the remaining 10% are homicides, shootings, stabbings and accidents."
“We even get calls from department stores and other large stores where a customer may have fallen and busted their head on the corner of a shelf and left blood. Anywhere somebody spills blood is where we go and clean it up."
“We have done jobs where the deceased person was suffering from a communicable disease, but we treat all jobs that way because we can’t afford the luxury of taking that risk. The clothing that we wear has to be rated for bloodborne pathogens. We wear eye protection, splash protection, respiratory protection, two pair of gloves, a full set of coveralls and two pair of booties. We’re covered from head to toe. Nothing can get on us."
“If we are working a suicide that happened only yesterday, our personal protection equipment would be different than if we were working where a body had decomposed for a month or so because we are not dealing with odors. We have full face respirators that have filters on them that purify the air and reduce the odors that we smell."
“If apartments or hotels or motels were to send their own maintenance crews in there to do that kind of cleaning, they would be in direct violation of OSHA regulations. Employee’s must be trained and certified in blood born pathogens and the use of personal protective equipment,” concluded Demaret.
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