FOR IMMEDIATE HELP
Many years ago now, people didn’t have companies who specialized in Trauma Remediation of structures. Families were left to beg, borrow, or steal anyone they could get to help clean up from suicide, homicide, or an unattended death scene. It didn’t matter to the families then who came out to help, they just couldn’t find it within themselves to enter those scenes and do what seemed an impossible task, as it would be for any of us.
That’s why companies like Crime Scene Cleaners KC exist. To provide a trained but detached resource who is properly trained, and yet has the compassion to give of themselves, in helping families and businesses recover from these losses. We called it bio-cleaning, bioremediation, bio-recovery, crime and trauma scene clean up, even forensic restoration but, what it really means to those who are in need of the service, is compassionate help.
I can’t image what it would take to walk into a room where my loved one died in traumatic ways and have the strength and fortitude to start and finish the task at hand and I’ve been doing this work for over 25 years. In the early days, as I look back through my mind’s eye and memories the work we did was so elementary to how we perform today. The processes have evolved, the chemicals have changed and this has now grown into a fulltime career for many people.
But the mission has ALWAYS been a constant.
“No One Should Be Victimized Twice.”
When our company grew large enough to start hiring and training technicians we found we have to hire certain kinds of people. This work is not for everyone. First of all they have to be mentally stable. Another is they have to show they have a servants heart, as we put it, someone who wants to serve people and help families who are hurting. Not all people who apply for this work can meet that criterion. Some who apply are folks who want to be involved in sensationalized work; they want to see a real crime scene up close and personal. Some people apply who want to satisfy some macabre itch; they want to see real blood and gore. Most of those we are able to weed out of our hiring process but what aren’t as easy is the “empathetic” person. You see there is a fine line between Sympathetic and Empathetic or Sympathy to Empathy.
A sympathetic person can show compassion for others going through stressful horrid times in their lives. They do this by sharing feelings of pity and compassion, but they are able to carry on their work in behalf of the hurting individual or family members. Whereby, an empathetic person is one who transfers someone’s feeling and emotion onto themselves; this state of mind cripples that person’s ability to do the work as needed.
Here’s an example we’ve all seen. Picture a women is in heavy labor having a baby. She cries out in pain and her body writhes with pain. In the movies the husband is not by her side coaching her through this hard time but rather shown crumpled in a corner of the room holding his own stomach and perhaps even crying out in pain. In the movies this is funny and they call it incorrectly “sympathy pains,” when in fact, by real definition it should be called empathy pains.
What kind of husband then provides help to his wife having that baby? The Sympathetic husband who can mentally understand his wife is hurting but that he can help through his coaching and hand-holding or the Empathetic husband who is completely useless crumpled in the corner focusing totally on himself and his own supposed pain. Does this make sense to you?
It’s important we hire people who have a servant’s heart with the great capacity of being sympathetic as it is for us to reject the empathetic applicant. It is just as important to the empathetic applicant we reject them, as it is for them to find the right type of job. The reason being…an empathetic technician can end up with PTSD after months of struggling to get
through their work and this serves no one. If hired the empathetic technician would end up being hurt through the work. We’ve seen what PTSD can do to people over the years, many of the homeless veterans suffering from PTSD because it prevents them from properly engaging their loved ones and society in general.
So, through our hiring practices, we are also living up to our motto, “No one should be victimized
twice.”
BY DON M. MCNULTY © COPYRIGHT 2019
Flu season is upon us. Hopefully, you’ve heard the PSA’s (Public Safety Announcements) asking everyone
to get their flu vaccination and you’ve received your vaccination.
Some years back, I was so busy that every time I thought about getting my flu shot for that year, I was doing something else or the drug stores weren’t open. I did make it to my drugstore once but they were out of the vaccine and I never got to return.
-BAD MISTAKE.-
Come late January I remember thinking I may have dodged the bullet, but soon after I felt a cold coming on and then it turned bad.
Many a person mistook a bad cold as the flu but as I soon found out; if you really catch the flu, you’ll
know the difference. I literally saw my mortality; I was so ill and out of work for an entire week. If it hadn’t been for one of my managers handling the business I don’t know what I could have done.
Please do not put off getting the flu vaccine. For some, it could mean life or death.
Here are a few benefits of the flu vaccine.
No vaccine is 100% effective so if by chance you do get the flu the symptoms and duration of the flu will be much less.
The flu vaccine has been proven to lessen the chances of contracting the common cold, and like above if you do catch that cold it should be lesser than the cold without the vaccine.
Studies have shown there is a direct cost/benefit to companies who have paid to have their employees vaccinated, with a healthier workforce and families they go home to.
This has been an alert brought to you by Crime scene Cleaners of Kansas City, LLC. If you need your home or work areas cleaned and sanitized due to a flu outbreak, give us a phone call at 1-800-909-2939
By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018
Society has been cleaning up our dead since Cain and Able but in 1993 a small company in Blue Springs, MO started an industry by being the first company to dedicate these services of “Bio Cleaning” as they called it. So, for many years this work was designated by bio cleaning. Then another company started in 1995 and they called the industry Crime and Trauma Scene Cleanup and it is this phrase that has been the most prevalent. Shortly after in 1996 a company started on the East Coast of the United States and called the industry bio recovery and this too has had its following. In more recent years as the different factions came together biohazard management seemed to be the title most want to hang their shingle under for more than a decade but now another term has emerged, “Forensic Restoration.” This last term…although not predominant as yet, also has seen quite a bit of use. The many faces of the forensic restoration industry has seemingly been a mystery, as most industries usually end up with one title that most can point to after 25 years. The problem of having many names I believe stems from the many aspects of “Forensic Restoration Industry.” They at times touch law enforcement, the funeral industry, the structure restoration industry, infection control, and the general public as consumers, even terrorism from biological weapons. Further, they remediate from all sorts of trauma related crime incidents, such as, homicides, altercations, break-ins, and others such as, teargas, clandestine meth-lab, and drug houses. “Crime and trauma scene cleaners” are types of companies who remediate from trauma related suicides, unattended death scenes, or, home or business related accidents, they even touch the medical industry through their work sanitizing structures, such as, residents, commercial structures, educational facilities, correctional facilities, transportation, places of leisure, and the like from infections. These infections can be C. diff; MRSA, VRE, Norovirus (cruise ship virus) AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis and flu outbreaks and these mentioned are just the common infections they fight. This industry also does the bulk of hoarding syndrome cleanup. When Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC of Kansas City chose the name of their company all of this was still a burgeoning industry known by the name “Crime Scene Cleaners.” No matter what the name of the company is…all of the above work stated is what we do here at Crime Scene Cleaners of Kansas City. From time to time people ask us, how can we do this work each and every day? Our answer is
simple…Each and every day we go to work, is an opportunity to help a person, family and/or community. Our motto is “no one should be victimized twice.” If you need help with any of the services stated above or a job that no one wants to do, please call Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC of Kansas City at 1-800-909-2939, we always stand ready to help.
By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018
Most people outside the professional cleaning and infection control industries and the adjunct industries haven’t heard the term “biofilm.” But, this film is the basis for all soiling and contamination within the living and work environment. Where does this biofilm come from? This is a question we at Crime Scene Cleaners KC have had to ask and learn the lessons in order to properly clean and sanitize the affected areas in our crime and trauma scene cleanup work or what we call forensic restoration.
Biofilm comes from two main sources, human activity and bacterial activity. Combined they form on a surface and continue to build into soiling you can see.
Here is how this works. Humans are fat. I’m not necessarily speaking to people who are overweight but rather the substance that makes us overweight, namely lipids and no matter how much you weigh, us all have lipids. Most of us know of lipo-suction where they literally suck the fat cells out of a person. Those lipids run through every part of the body. They are in your hair, skin, tears, nasal secretions, breath, saliva, blood and our waste. If you place your hand down on a surface and raise it up and look at the surface you will see an outline of your hand. You have just placed what most call hand-oil on to the surface. That hand-oil called, esters, a liquid form of lipids. That’s what you wash off your face and hair. We also place lipids on each surface with our breath. As we breathe, the air leaving our body is laden with lipids. Now that the lipids are on our surfaces and the moisture begins to evaporate the lipids become sticky. (Ever had blood between your fingers and as it dries you feel the stickiness?)
Being sticky on a molecular level it begins to attract micro-pollutants and bacteria floating through the air. Here is where the bacteria come into play. Once the bacteria is on the surface it begins to replicate producing a very sticky substance of a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances, meaning goo in laymen. A bacterium grows at an exponential rate. One bacterium on the surface continually divides to 2,097,152 in just seven hours. In twenty-four hours it divides to 4.7 sextillion, that’s 4.7 with 17 zeros behind it.
These two substances are continually growing through the human and bacterial activity attracting more and more micro-pollutants. The longer the biofilm lays on the surface it begins to harden into layers. Also, this bacteria laden biofilm is continually spread through our touching the surface and then touching yet another surface depositing the biofilm from one area to the next.
We start to see biofilm as our surfaces start to dull, or you see a dingy dark substance around cabinet handles, door knobs or light switches. I clean my kitchen counter tops at least twice a day…it takes just a few minutes. Yet, I’ve cleaned counter tops in a hoarder house roughly the same area and it has taken me several hours, why? The biofilm was deep and extremely hard and you have to work through those hardened layers. Here’s one more example; tooth plaque is biofilm on your teeth. The longer you wait between dental visits the harder the plaque is to remove and the more damage it generates.
The technicians at Crime Scene Cleaners, LLC in the Greater Kansas City Area are routinely trained in the science of cleaning and restoration. Our goal is to create sanitary surfaces within the built environment whether we are remediating are as affected by suicide, homicide, unattended death or performing infection control services in homes and businesses.
If you have an incident requiring a high level of expertise we have the training experience and equipment to properly perform the work; please call Crime Scene Cleaners at (816 or 913)-808-7642 or find us on the net at www.crimescenecleanerskc.com
By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018
Most of us have heard of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and SEDS (Sudden Elderly Death Syndrome) is a twist on that terminology. Have you heard, the “The new 50 is 70?” This means people in the industrially developed world are living longer and are stronger than ever before. Today people who reach 70 and beyond are usually much more active, ambulatory and look much younger than their fathers and mothers, and certainly their grandparents at the same age. The average age expectancy for men and women in the United States is 78.6 for men and women being 81.1 according to data published by the US Census Bureau. And, on many occasions a person can be relatively healthy and active right up and to the end of life.
An unattended death is someone who dies alone and isn’t discovered for three or more days with the average unattended being 10 to 14 days. It only takes three days before the body begins to breakdown, which can cause structure damage and extreme odors.
Keep reading to see how these two events create a need for a professional remediation and cleaning company like Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. of Kansas City to be engaged for repairs.
We are a very mobile society with people and families moving from one end of the country to other. Older people nowadays move away from their family and close friends to enjoy warmer or exotic climates. Other times it’s the exact opposite; close family moves away from older relatives to pursue work and career choices. For those of us who are blessed to live longer we may even outlive our close friends and family leaving us pretty much alone. Other times we choose to be alone. No matter how it happens some end up in a situation where they’re somewhat alone or secluded and when death does strike, there’s no one around to know.
In these cases families, and/or landlords are left to repair the structure. The longer a death goes undiscovered the greater the damage to the structure. They will need a company like Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. of Kansas City to remediate the structure and perform special deodorization to abate the extreme odors left behind. These events present specific problems for remediation companies, since pathogens and other biohazards will be present.
That’s why Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. specializes in biohazard remediation and infection control. They are a step above normal restoration companies as this is the only thing they do.
If you are in the Greater Kansas City Area, from Topeka, KS to Columbia, MO from Bethany, MO to Pittsburg, KS and find yourself in need of a specialized company for a traumatic death scene such as; an unattended death, suicide, or homicide please call Crime Scene Cleaner, Inc. at (816) or (913) 808-7642
By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018
What is an unattended death? This is a person that passed away but wasn’t found for three or more days, with the average being 10 to 14 days. I wanted a more compassionate way to communicate to my clients for this state of affairs because using the word decomp, decompose, or any derivative in dealing
with my clients seemed too harsh. So, finally we landed on Unattended Death. Today, the term fully explains the situation to most people we deal with and now it’s widely used even on television shows and the movies.
Understanding how hard these deaths are to cope with is the reason for this article. I remember full-well my first unattended. It was the elderly aunt of a police detective named Chad. He was her only living relative; she lived alone but was fiercely independent. Chad explained, “I would call her a couple of times a week just to check-in on her and she told me to quit calling so much, she didn’t have anything to say. Then, I would drop by just to say hello, telling her I was in the neighborhood or perhaps bring her a meal we could share and she told me it was too much company, she had too much to do and it wasn’t necessary.” He felt bad but didn’t want to intrude, nevertheless concerned since she lived alone. She was an 83 year old woman who only weighed 95 pounds soak and wet, yet she worked around the house keeping busy every day; out in her garden, mowing the lawn, shopping, and had been living alone for some 20 years since her husband died. He further explained, “I don’t think she was ever a really sick other than a head-cold.”
The angst Chad felt for not being there when he was needed is what bothered him the most explaining this several times in different ways within the first hour. Chad and his family had left to go on a two-week vacation and when he returned, he learned of her death. As near as they could tell, she had passed away perhaps the day they left town.
Usually, what people say in these cases are, “I can’t believe, while I and my family were out having fun or living life they were left to die alone, it seems so sad.” This is what bothers most relatives and friends, and they seem, at least for a while to torture themselves with those thoughts.
As they say, death is part of living and this is the reason Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. in Kansas City exist. These deaths can create quite a bit of damage within the structure and the deodorization is very difficult to abate. Crime Scene Cleaners has all the knowledge, experience and equipment to restore these structures to a pre-event status. We understand how our clients feel and have so much compassion for their plight.
If you have an unattended death, suicide, homicide or some other trauma event please call Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. in the Kansas City and surrounding areas at (816) or (913) 808-7642
By Don M. McNulty, MBT AT- OSHA, MTC ©COPYRIGHT 2018