I had a difficult and private issue and Jeremy and his team handled it efficiently and completely. I was so grateful for the help at a trying time. I hope I’ll never need them again, but if I do I will call without hesitation
-Hilary Noonan
If you are in that “what do we do now?” situation, call this place. We were there, and fortunately had a referral to Crime Scene Cleaners.
Without seeing the job, they gave us a range for the cost (including a trip to outside KC). John and Mat showed up on time and made it look good as new. The final bill came up towards the low end of the ballpark estimate.
Appreciate your professionalism and help in getting back to normal.
– Jim Easley
I’ve heard about PTSD — But What is Moral Injury?
-By Don M. McNulty
As a Bio-technician in the Crime and Trauma Scene Industry, I suffered from PTSD like many first responders and those in the medical field. I thought if I studied everything I could to understand my condition, I would affect a better recovery and help me manage it. Unfortunately, I believe one never heals from PTSD, but we learn to manage it into remission.
While attending a Chaplaincy Conference here in Missouri, we had a quick session on Moral Injury. I had never encountered that term in my research, so it got my attention. However, as I spoke with others who have continued to suffer for years from PTSD, they had never heard of the term. Knowing those who continue to suffer from PTSD made me wonder how I learned to place mine into remission, and they hadn’t been able to get to any higher level of healing. Until now, I concluded that most of those I spoke to were active in combat, where I’d never been.
So today, with this writing, I’m presenting perhaps another avenue for victims of this disorder to seek more information to reach a healing place.
The National Center for PTSD provides the above definition of Moral Injury.
Moral injury and PTSD are very different but have similarities, often causing confusion between the two disorders. PTSD is a mental health condition caused by exposure to a traumatic event. This event can be anything from combat to sexual assault. On the other hand, moral injury results from one violating their moral code, which could be as simple as lying to someone you love or as serious as committing a war crime or violating a religious-based moral code.
Moral injury can be incredibly damaging, leading to guilt, shame, and self-loathing. These feelings can be perplexing and hard to cope with, often leading to substance abuse and suicide. PTSD, while also incredibly damaging, is more focused on the symptoms caused by the traumatic event itself. These symptoms can include flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts.
People with these disorders may avoid discussing or taking part in activities that remind them of the traumatic event, such as Group Therapy. People with Moral Injury may also feel like they can’t talk about it because they feel intense shame. Both victims feel no one will understand what they’re going through.
The symptoms of moral injury and post-traumatic stress disorder can be relieved with different treatments. For those suffering from PTSD, treatment should focus on relieving the physical effects caused by traumatic events, like therapy or medication. For people who have experienced a more profound hurt, such as an act of morality offense, this may take longer because they need to come to terms first before moving forward into talking about what happened, which is an often-difficult process.
Understanding the differences between moral injury and PTSD is vital to get the right help for yourself or someone you love.
If you think you may suffer from moral injury rather than PTSD, please seek help immediately and have that discussion with a qualified professional.
Moral Injury is a term that has been gaining traction in recent years to describe the unique damage caused by war and other traumatic experiences, as stated above. Jonathan Shay, a doctor who has worked extensively with veterans, coined the term in his book “Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming.”
PTSD is a well-known and well-studied condition caused by exposure to traumatic events. Intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance characterize PTSD. However, there are many symptoms, and no two people experience PTSD in precisely the same way.
We treat PTSD and moral injuries in different ways. Treatment for moral injury should focus on helping the person come to terms with what they have done. Therapy can be a long and challenging process, but it is necessary to move on.
PTSD is a registered mental health condition we treat with therapy and medication. It results from seeing a traumatic event outside of ourselves.
Currently, the Medical Psychiatric Community does not consider Moral Injury a mental health condition. Moral injury results from someone committing an act that violates their inner morality. However, there is growing evidence we should treat Moral Injury as its own category of trauma.
If you or someone you know is struggling with Moral Injury, you can take steps to get help. You can find resources at the websites for Veterans Affairs in the U.S. and Canada if they were part of the military, and others can find help with The National Center of PTSD.
Both PTSD and Moral Injury involve therapies like cognitive-behavioral therapy or exposure therapy. However, treating Moral Injury also often involves soul-searching, reflection on the event, and its impact on your life.
Both disorders frequently will cause their victims not to seek the help they need. They mistakenly believe if they try harder, they can learn to manage its effects, which rarely works.
Knowing this is an emotional and psychological problem they are experiencing, they also erroneously believe there is a stigma from society attached, and it would follow them throughout the rest of their lives. They are so focused on the pain that everything else is black.
I liken it to a person who slams a hammer down on their finger; all that matters now is the pain. I could place a dancing bear before them, and they would not realize it. Why? Because their entire focus is on the pain they are feeling, and nothing else matters.
I’ll close with a YouTube video showing a person’s awareness when focused on a task. You can find it at the following link.
Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC endeavors to bring you relevant information to help you deal with the stresses of life and work. We serve the States of Missouri and Kansas, if there is anything we can help anyone in your community please contact us at 1-800-808-7642 or www.crimescenecleanerskc.com
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE HIRED AS A CRIME OR DEATH SCENE CLEANER
-By Don M. McNulty
Owning or Managing a Crime and Trauma Scene Cleanup (CTS) Company is an exciting line of work; it takes a unique person to work in this industry. However, I’m not sure exciting is the correct word to explain your feelings as you are called to a scene. Perhaps in the beginning — like any other job — the first few could cause excitement, as most would define the word. Still, the word stimulation might fit better as the weeks, months, and years pass.
Almost every traumatic death scene has a mystique because the public doesn’t see these scenes often, nor do they want to. As we approach the job site, the technician’s adrenalin runs high as you speculate about what you’ll see, hear, and touch.
When a position for a new technician becomes available, we will receive inquiries from three different varieties of candidates.
The following might Surprise You.The first will be the thrill seeker who has a macabre curiosity about the work and the scenes. Once they have fulfilled their curiosity, they’re on to other adventures. But unfortunately, we find their sense of privacy isn’t what it should be as they want to brag about what they’ve seen and done.
Another type of person is a medical worker of sorts. It might be anyone from a nurse, CNA, EMT, or hospital environmental worker. The medical worker may or may not be the correct candidate for the job because we would look for added skill-sets like the following.
The last classification is someone who has construction experience. Again, the skills we’re after do not mean a professional contractor per se, but someone who has a basic knowledge of built structures and the skill-sets of working with the tools a contractor would use.
Since we are working in a biohazard environment with human blood and tissue deposits strewn around a room (s), or some microbial contamination, most people think that medical experience is an essential skill to have. Although your assumption wouldn’t be wrong, medical education and how to keep yourself safe in a biohazard area are the easiest parts to teach. It’s easier because we’re not taking personal care of human beings as they would within the medical setting.
Bio Cleaning Services of America was the first company dedicated to this work in the early days. The owner couldn’t think of an appropriate name, but when the victim’s families regularly called for help, they would say, we need help to clean this up. Thus, the word cleaning stuck in the name of what we do.
There is one last point I want you to consider. I usually ask, why do you want to be a Bio Technician? Quite a few candidates will tell me they want to help people and believe they can do the work because they watch True Crime and various horror movies. But, of course, none of that makes them sick. But they are speaking only to the visual. On a job site, all the senses are active — the emotional, visual, auditory, touch, and smell. So, if potent odors make you feel sick to your stomach, you’re probably the wrong candidate.
We do indeed clean many items if possible. Still, cleaning is often impossible, so we deconstruct and rebuild those affected areas.
We describe our work as like an onion. We peel back the first layer to see if the damage went further. If it has, we remove the next layer until we find the damage’s end. For example, the damage may cause us to remove flooring and sub-flooring. Likewise, we will remove the ceiling if there is a room with a ceiling below. Next, we examine and determine damage on the floor joists and whether we will have to remove contaminated material from those structures.
Blood moves similarly to water. If there is a large pool of blood, it will often move sideways until it can seep through below, and it only needs a crack the width of a piece of copy paper. For example, the blood may travel under walls to an adjacent room or closet space. In these cases, we are removing sheetrock or plaster wall material. Removing the sill plate may become necessary if it bears contamination. If the contaminate runs under the sill plate area under the standing wall studs, we need to know if that wall is a load-bearing wall. If so, other work must be completed to shore up the load-bearing wall before we remove any load-bearing structure.
Having building construction knowledge lets the technician know how deep they will set the skill saw or how to know if there are electrical wires or plumbing inside a wall cavity near their work area. Those utilities travel differently in a commercial-built building than in a residential structure. So, the hardest part of us to teach would be the construction skills and basic knowledge. Everything else we can teach easily.
Most of the regulations guiding our work are from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The three principal regulations are,
Wet Bulb Global Temperature Guideline — for working safely under extreme weather.
Heat exhaustion is a big problem for crime scene bio technicians since they often work in level 3 PPE, which means no exposed skin. I once had a young lady keep asking me to hire her. She had these qualifications. During my interview with her in her office, she mentioned being heat sensitive. I expressed my concern and asked for a favor. She also mentioned she worked out four nights a week. I gave her a bio coverall we wore and asked her to work out in the coverall for 30 minutes. If she could do that, I would hire her. I never heard from her until the day we were called back to the apartment building she managed. She gestured for me to come into her office when she saw me.
I guess you’re wondering why I never called you back.
I replied, no, ma’am, I figured you didn’t pass the endurance test.
She said excitedly; she could only work out for 10 minutes, stopped for the entire evening, and went home.
We also train our technicians in epidemiology — the study of how diseases transfer to humans, how to prevent contamination of the bio technician, and how to prevent cross-contamination to other areas of the structure. Suppose you read other articles on this subject — you may read the other writers calling the technician — a Forensic Technician. A Bio Technician and a Forensic Technician are semantics that carry the same meaning.
The growing knowledge base obtained by the Bio Technician includes Lead Abatement Certification and Asbestos Regulations. Every Bio Technician should have their Lead Abatement Certification, but few Crime Scene Clean Up Companies perform Asbestos Abatement. However, knowing when asbestos may be part of the scene is necessary. A testing company is called to test the structure for asbestos contamination. Indeed, some states require asbestos testing before any work is done.
Now you know why a CTS Bio Technician needs the skill-sets of a construction worker.
Trauma-based work is not all we perform. The other work we do is sewage removal, pigeon contamination, hoarder houses, bat guano, disinfection services, vehicles of every sort, and deodorization — just about any remediation that others will not perform.
Bio-Technicians need the temperament of a social worker or minister when dealing with the family, a high sense of morality, and honesty. Those are the qualities of the person we seek. This work is never “just a job.” Even if the job would start that way in someone’s mind, it soon changes after they understand how their work positively impacts the families and communities we serve.
If you have questions regarding our blog posts, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Also, let us know if you have any
suggestions on what you would like to see discussed in our blog format. Contact me by email at dmm@kcfcr.com. I’ll be
happy to entertain any suggestion.
We had Crime Scene Cleaners come in to help us clean out a family members home that had some issues with hoarding. They gave us a fair quote and even worked with us to move to an additional day because of weather. I would recommend them if you need a company that is friendly, knowledgeable and willing to work with you.”
I had a difficult and private issue and Jeremy and his team handled it efficiently and completely. I was so grateful for the help at a trying time. I hope I’ll never need them again, but if I do I will call without hesitation.”
-Hilary Noonan
Toilet Plumes — Do Bioaerosols Represent a Danger to Your Health?
-By Don M. McNulty
Toilet plumes or the spray coming up out of the toilet have been a concern to many people. Although, I don’t think I heard of the concern per se until I was well into adulthood.
I found by testing there is a plume. I have used my particulate counter to measure the number of particles during a flush cycle. The numbers at my home range in the thousands of particles. Measuring the plume in a public restroom with a commercial style toilet the counts run into the tens of thousands of particles.
According to research the number of particles depends on the style of the toilet and the amount of water pressure used to flush, and if the toilet lid is closed before the flush.
According to one such study I found on WebMD to support my own findings with details is curated here below.
Aerosolized Droplets’ Hang in the Air After Toilet Flush
FROM THE WEBMD ARCHIVES
By Cara Murez
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) — If you’re in a public restroom, you may not want to hang around too long, because lots of airborne pathogens are hanging around, too.
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science conducted flush tests in a public restroom with both a toilet and a urinal.
“After about three hours of tests involving more than 100 flushes, we found a substantial increase in the measured aerosol levels … with the total number of droplets generated in each flushing test ranging up to the tens of thousands,” said study co-author Siddhartha Verma. He is an assistant professor of ocean and mechanical engineering at the university.
Pathogens that can cause Ebola, norovirus and even COVID-19 can be found in stagnant water, as well as in urine, feces, and vomit. According to the research team, flushing can generate large amounts of airborne germs, depending on flushing power, toilet design and water pressure.
For the study, the researchers placed a particle counter at various heights of the toilet and urinal to capture the size and number of droplets generated by flushing. They did the same with a covered toilet. (Few public restrooms in the United States have lids, and urinals are not covered.)
Droplets were detected at heights of up to 5 feet for 20 seconds or longer after initiating a flush, the findings showed.
The investigators detected fewer droplets when the lid was closed before flushing, but the number wasn’t much less. This suggests that aerosol droplets escaped through small gaps between the cover and the seat.
Verma noted that both the toilet and urinal generated large quantities of droplets under 3 micrometers in size, posing a significant transmission risk if they contain infectious microorganisms.
“Due to their small size, these droplets can remain suspended for a long time,” Verma explained in a university news release.
The researchers reported a 69.5% increase in measured levels of particles between 0.3 and 0.5 micrometers in size; a 209% increase for particles sized 0.5 to 1 micrometer; and a 50% increase for particles between 1 and 3 micrometers.
According to study co-author Masoud Jahandar Lashaki, “The significant accumulation of flush-generated aerosolized droplets over time suggests that the ventilation system was not effective in removing them from the enclosed space even though there was no perceptible lack of airflow within the restroom.” Lashaki is an assistant professor of civil, environmental and geomatics engineering.
“Over the long-term, these aerosols could rise up with updrafts created by the ventilation system or by people moving around in the restroom,” he explained.
Even larger aerosols can add risk, the study authors noted.
Co-author Manhar Dhanak, chairman of ocean and mechanical engineering, pointed out that the study suggests that “incorporation of adequate ventilation in the design and operation of public spaces would help prevent aerosol accumulation in high-occupancy areas such as public restrooms.”
The restroom was deep cleaned and closed 24 hours before conducting the experiments, and the ventilation system was operating normally.
The report was published recently in the journal Physics of Fluids.
Stella Batalama is dean of engineering and computer science at the college. She concluded that “aerosolized droplets play a central role in the transmission of various infectious diseases including COVID-19, and this latest research by our team of scientists provides additional evidence to support the risk of infection transmission in confined and poorly ventilated spaces.”
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19.
SOURCE: Florida Atlantic University, news release, April 20, 2021
Bio Hazard Cleanup Go To Team. They are fast, well priced, dependable and amazing to work with. They will answer any questions you have and make sure to go step by step through any procedures they may have! I highly recommend Jeremy and his whole team!
-Eagle Ridge
We weren’t dealing with a crime scene. Jeremy and his crew did a terrific job completely removing EVERYTHING (furniture, carpet, clothes, books, electronics, personal care items, etc.) from the house, and thoroughly cleaned the kitchen, bathrooms and garage. They arrived early and were polite, efficient and helpful throughout the day. For what they helped us achieve, we considered the price a bargain.
-Dave Burns
The crew that worked on my brothers house were all super nice and professional. They didn’t leave anything I asked of them untouched. I can’t say enough good things about the job they did! I highly recommend them.
-Linda Kesterson
