Many Workers Last Less Than Year On Tough Clean-Up Job
CLEVELAND -- Murders, suicides, tragic accident and terrible occurrences all have one thing in common: Somebody has to take on the task of cleaning up the crime scene after police finish their investigation.
NewsChannel5 crime beat specialist Joe Pagonakis reported that dollar-for-dollar, crime scene clean-up is physically, emotionally and psychologically one of the toughest jobs in northeast Ohio.
Last month, police were called to Hopkins International Airport when a man attacked officers, and then was shot and killed. Crime scene tape went up, and the coroner's office took pictures.
And just this week, police surrounded a Euclid office building where a man was holding his girlfriend hostage. EMS was called to the scene, but then the suspect took his own life.
Copyright 2007 by NewsNet5
Images: Crews Clean Up After Crimes
After tragedies such as these, professional clean-up crews, like Bio Clean Services of Hudson, must suit up for an incredibly tough job.
"There are times I want to leave, I just want to quit, but the family depends on me to get the work done," said Bio Clean owner Mark Onesta.
Onesta and his crew arrive on the scene of a job as police are leaving. Long after police cars are gone, the team deals with the aftermath: blood-stained rooms, biological hazards, and families that will never be the same.
"You're dealing with the emotional aspects of grieving family members. It's no 'CSI' on TV, it's the real deal," said Bio Clean's Stephen Frazier.
Through their digital crime scene pictures, Bio Clean employees tell a tale of a job that's not for everyone: body outlines burned into floors from severe decomposition, and homes so contaminated by biohazards that entire floors had to be removed.
The job is very physically demanding as well.
"I could lose 5 to 10 pounds in just one day working a crime scene seven or eight hours," said one Bio Clean employee.
Bio Clean employees protect themselves from head to toe from dangers such as HIV. One mistake could cost them their lives.
One worker said they have to work slowly to be safe. A job could take two hours, or it could take 10.
Items taken from a crime scene clean-up must be placed in individual sealed containers and sent to a special site in Tennessee.
Special vacuums, steamers, sprayers and ozone generators are used along with some extremely powerful cleaning agents.
Some of them have the power to kill things such as hepatitis, HIV and tuberculosis. Others are used for the odor in a place where a body has been found.
Yet another is used to break down the proteins in blood to make it easier to remove.
Bio Clean employees go through hundreds of hours of training with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and bio-recovery.
More than 100 clean-ups are handled by the company each year. Still, many on staff don't last 12 months on the job. Dealing with the dirty side of death is something you just can't get used to.
"You walk into a scene where something bad has happened, where someone has lost their life. You're there removing fragments of what's left over. I don't know how to put it into words. It's tough," said Onesta.
City tax dollars and insurance companies often pay for these meticulous, dangerous and tedious clean-ups.
Bio Clean Services said a good part of the job is when they find additional evidence at crime scenes that help police find a killer
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