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Bio-Recovery: The R&R Interview

2010-07-28T12:48:00.000-07:00

by Jeffrey Stouffer editor
July 19, 2010

A continually evolving and expanding segment of the remediation industry, bio-recovery – better known as “crime scene cleanup” or “trauma cleaning” – has made great strides since it first came into being as an organized segment of the business almost two decades ago. Recently, R&R spoke with Kent Berg, director of the National Institute of Decontamination Specialists and founder of the American Bio-Recovery Association, to get his take on where the industry stands today and where it’s headed in the future.

Restoration & Remediation: Briefly, what falls under the scope of work when people talk about “bio-recovery”?

Kent Berg: Bio-recovery is actually a term that was derived from the words BioHazard Cleanup and Scene Recovery. We chose that term because our industry’s scope of work is actually much broader than cleaning crime scenes. We are often thought of as the guys that will clean up anything that is nasty, repulsive, or gross, so people naturally call us to clean up human feces, animal feces, dead animals – usually rotten ones – and gross filth, as in rotting food, poor hygiene, and piles and piles of garbage. Then there’s the decomposed human body scenes, meth labs, the occasional disease outbreak, and anything else that would cause a normal person to stay a hundred feet away to keep from puking.

R&R: You’ve been part of the bio-recovery profession pretty much since before it became a profession. Since that time, what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen, both positive and negative?

KB: When I first started, very few people in this business knew anything about cleaning and disinfecting. They just wanted to make the visible contamination go away. No one in the insurance industry had ever heard of a crime scene cleanup company, and many adjusters argued that our services were not covered. Today, the biggest changes have been in our profile. What I mean by that is the public, who had never heard of our services, now see us in TV shows, documentaries, movies, magazines, and newspaper articles. We have recognition now, and families are more aware that these services exist.

Another change has been in the performance of the cleanup itself. We as an industry are much more aware of the antimicrobials we are using, the techniques and knowledge related to home construction, vehicle dismantling, and being able to actually render a property safe on a microscopic level.

R&R: From a purely objective point of view, bio-recovery would seem to be about as “recession-proof” as any remediation specialty out there. There will always be accidents, suicides and other traumas that require a professional remediator. What are some of the pros and cons that come along with that?

KB: We know that our services will always be needed, but with a higher profile, we are seeing more and more companies starting up, and more and more fire/water restoration companies adding this service to their menus. Although the demand for our services is increasing, the individual companies’ call volumes aren’t growing as fast because there is more competition for that finite number of incidents.

The pros are that the public will have resources to respond if they need them, and that companies will have to step up their game in service quality and marketing. The cons are that the majority of these new companies are not attending training, not getting any type of certification beyond a half-day OSHA bloodborne pathogen course. It’s these companies that are dragging the good companies down when the public hears about a company throwing a bloody mattress in a dumpster, etc.

R&R: Since hindsight is 20/20, if there was one thing you would go back and change, as far as how you operated your business, what is it, and what would you do differently?

KB: I would have marketed harder. I assumed that people would need my service and seek me out. That was true for a while, but when competitors popped up with their marketing programs, the public chose who was freshest in their minds. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but one I will never forget.

R&R: Technologically speaking, what areas have seen the greatest advances? Chemicals? PPE? Containment?

KB: One of the advancements has been our recognition as a legitimate industry. Today, vendors of specialty restoration products are targeting our industry. Kimberly-Clark markets their suits with the “Recommended by the American Bio-Recovery Association” seal on them. Other products used in our industry have similar tie-ins with our trade association or at the very least mention in their advertising that their product is great for cleaning crime and trauma scenes. Even the insurance industry no longer recognizes us under their “janitorial service” heading, opting now for a “crime scene cleanup” designation for insurance coverage.

We are also seeing new technology in the form of new disinfectants, odor-remediation technology, and devices to actually measure how clean a surface really is. The National Organization for Victim Assistance is putting on a training program this fall for teaching all interested bio-recovery technicians how to better interact with victims and their families. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has sought out input so they may better understand our industry.

However, I believe the most important advancement for the industry has been the formation of training centers. Legitimate training programs help make sure that any technician who wants to be the best at their profession can attend a school that specializes in that field. By establishing a standard training and certification program, students graduate far ahead of their competitors and benefit from years of experience from seasoned industry professionals, scientists, chemists, and pathologists that helped to design the curriculum.

Jeffrey Stouffer editor
stoufferj@bnpmedia.com

Jeffrey Stouffer is editor of Restoration & Remediation magazine

6 reasons why people commit suicide

2010-06-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

by Alex Lickerman, MD

Though I’ve never lost a friend or family member to suicide, I have lost a patient.

I have known a number of people left behind by the suicide of people close to them, however. Given how much losing my patient affected me, I’ve only been able to guess at the devastation these people have experienced. Pain mixed with guilt, anger, and regret makes for a bitter drink, the taste of which I’ve seen take many months or even years to wash out of some mouths.

The one question everyone has asked without exception, that they ache to have answered more than any other, is simply, why?

Why did their friend, child, parent, spouse, or sibling take their own life? Even when a note explaining the reasons is found, lingering questions usually remain: yes, they felt enough despair to want to die, but why did they feel that? A person’s suicide often takes the people it leaves behind by surprise (only accentuating survivor’s guilt for failing to see it coming).

People who’ve survived suicide attempts have reported wanting not so much to die as to stop living, a strange dichotomy but a valid one nevertheless. If some in-between state existed, some other alternative to death, I suspect many suicidal people would take it. For the sake of all those reading this who might have been left behind by someone’s suicide, I wanted to describe how I was trained to think about the reasons people kill themselves. They’re not as intuitive as most think.

In general, people try to kill themselves for six reasons:

1. They’re depressed. This is without question the most common reason people commit suicide. Severe depression is always accompanied by a pervasive sense of suffering as well as the belief that escape from it is hopeless. The pain of existence often becomes too much for severely depressed people to bear. The state of depression warps their thinking, allowing ideas like “Everyone would all be better off without me” to make rational sense. They shouldn’t be blamed for falling prey to such distorted thoughts any more than a heart patient should be blamed for experiencing chest pain: it’s simply the nature of their disease.

Because depression, as we all know, is almost always treatable, we should all seek to recognize its presence in our close friends and loved ones. Often people suffer with it silently, planning suicide without anyone ever knowing. Despite making both parties uncomfortable, inquiring directly about suicidal thoughts in my experience almost always yields an honest response. If you suspect someone might be depressed, don’t allow your tendency to deny the possibility of suicidal ideation prevent you from asking about it.

2. They’re psychotic. Malevolent inner voices often command self-destruction for unintelligible reasons. Psychosis is much harder to mask than depression — and arguably even more tragic. The worldwide incidence of schizophrenia is 1% and often strikes otherwise healthy, high-performing individuals, whose lives, though manageable with medication, never fulfill their original promise.

Schizophrenics are just as likely to talk freely about the voices commanding them to kill themselves as not, and also, in my experience, give honest answers about thoughts of suicide when asked directly. Psychosis, too, is treatable, and usually must be for a schizophrenic to be able to function at all. Untreated or poorly treated psychosis almost always requires hospital admission to a locked ward until the voices lose their commanding power.

3. They’re impulsive. Often related to drugs and alcohol, some people become maudlin and impulsively attempt to end their own lives. Once sobered and calmed, these people usually feel emphatically ashamed. The remorse is usually genuine, and whether or not they’ll ever attempt suicide again is unpredictable. They may try it again the very next time they become drunk or high, or never again in their lifetime. Hospital admission is therefore not usually indicated. Substance abuse and the underlying reasons for it are generally a greater concern in these people and should be addressed as aggressively as possible.

4. They’re crying out for help, and don’t know how else to get it. These people don’t usually want to die but do want to alert those around them that something is seriously wrong. They often don’t believe they will die, frequently choosing methods they don’t think can kill them in order to strike out at someone who’s hurt them—but are sometimes tragically misinformed. The prototypical example of this is a young teenage girl suffering genuine angst because of a relationship, either with a friend, boyfriend, or parent who swallows a bottle of Tylenol—not realizing that in high enough doses Tylenol causes irreversible liver damage.

I’ve watched more than one teenager die a horrible death in an ICU days after such an ingestion when remorse has already cured them of their desire to die and their true goal of alerting those close to them of their distress has been achieved.

5. They have a philosophical desire to die. The decision to commit suicide for some is based on a reasoned decision often motivated by the presence of a painful terminal illness from which little to no hope of reprieve exists. These people aren’t depressed, psychotic, maudlin, or crying out for help. They’re trying to take control of their destiny and alleviate their own suffering, which usually can only be done in death. They often look at their choice to commit suicide as a way to shorten a dying that will happen regardless. In my personal view, if such people are evaluated by a qualified professional who can reliably exclude the other possibilities for why suicide is desired, these people should be allowed to die at their own hands.

6. They’ve made a mistake. This is a recent, tragic phenomenon in which typically young people flirt with oxygen deprivation for the high it brings and simply go too far. The only defense against this, it seems to me, is education.

The wounds suicide leaves in the lives of those left behind by it are often deep and long lasting. The apparent senselessness of suicide often fuels the most significant pain survivors feel. Thinking we all deal better with tragedy when we understand its underpinnings, I’ve offered the preceding paragraphs in hopes that anyone reading this who’s been left behind by a suicide might be able to more easily find a way to move on, to relinquish their guilt and anger, and find closure. Despite the abrupt way you may have been left, those don’t have to be the only two emotions you’re doomed to feel about the one who left you.

Alex Lickerman is an internal medicine physician at the University of Chicago who blogs at Happiness in this World.

Detecting and Preventing Suicide among Teenagers

2010-05-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

Melissa Ridenour

According to both the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Center for Disease Control, suicide is the third leading cause of death for youth ages 15 to 24. Teen suicide affects everyone. Family and friends feel a guilty sense that if they had only done something different, the suicide could have been prevented. Therefore, it’s important to understand its causes, how to detect potential suicidal vulnerability, and how to help prevent it.

Causes of Teen Suicide
As teens grow up, they often feel stress, self-doubt, confusion, social and interaction problems with friends, peer pressure, concerns about succeeding, and pressure to meet parental expectations. Some teens suffer from clinical depression as well. Most teenagers experience such feelings to a certain degree at some point in their growing years. Those who are overwhelmed with such feelings and are unable to deal with them are more at risk for suicide.

There are several causes for teenagers to potentially want to take their own lives. Anxiety or depression left untreated can be a contributing factor. Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness can cause teenagers to contemplate ending their lives. Other contributing factors are lack of success in school, bullying at school, violence at home, divorce, death of a loved one, rejection by peers, and the suicide of a friend.

According to the Center for Disease Control, such pressures of life make it too difficult for some teens to cope. As a result, sometimes overwhelmed teens welcome suicide as an escape from the pressure and pain.

Detecting Teen Depression and Potentially Suicidal Teens
According the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, parents should be on the lookout for specific signs in their children that could be indicators for a potential suicide risk. Such indicators include withdrawal from family and friends, as well as a lack of interest in activities the teens formerly enjoyed. Parents should look for any change in eating and sleeping habits or in hygiene and personal appearance.

In addition, parents should watch for personality changes and rebellious or violent behavior. Difficulty concentrating, decline in the quality of school work, and persistent boredom and malaise are possible signs as well. Persistent complaints of stomach aches, headaches and fatigue could be symptoms of emotional problems that can be signs of potential suicidal tendencies.

Equally important signs to watch for include statements from teens that they are bad and that they feel terrible inside. Other verbal hints include such statements as, “I won’t be a problem for you much longer. It’s no use. Nothing matters anyway.” Such statements from teens are clear indicators that they may be at least contemplating suicide.

If teenagers start giving away cherished possessions or throwing away favorite belongings, a way of getting their affairs in order, parents should consider such behavior an indicator of the risk for suicide. In addition, parents should watch for any signs of hallucinations or bizarre or strange thoughts.

Teen Suicide Prevention
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, if teens threaten to commit suicide, parents should take the threat seriously and immediately seek professional help from a qualified mental health professional. Parents should not hesitate to ask their teens if they have suicidal thoughts. Such a question will not put the idea into children’s heads, but will, instead, assure teens that someone cares and open up an opportunity for discussion about it.

Parents should determine if their teens are suffering from depression and, if so, get medical treatment for the depression. Counseling is a good preventive strategy for depressed or potentially suicidal teens as well. Counseling can provide teens with coping strategies for dealing with their life problems. Frequently, once teens learn how to cope with problems, their suicidal desires dissipate.

It is essential for parents to treat their teens with understanding, compassion and respect. Parents should demonstrate unconditional love, offer emotional support, and make their teens feel important, loved and wanted. Parents should demonstrate to their teens that overcoming their problems and life challenges is possible and that they will help them with such challenges.

Resources
Related information can be found in the articles, “Coping with a Bully: How to Stop Bullying” and “Strategies for Dealing with a Bully Dilemma”. The article, “Dealing with Grief” provides related information about dealing with the death of a loved one.

An insight into crime scenes clean up services

2010-03-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Crime scene cleanup companies also clean unattended deaths, damaged environments due to tear gas, and other crime and distress scenes. The larger crime scenes that involve mass murder scenes, terrorist attacks and anthrax and other biochemical damage is also taken care by these companies. Crime Scene Cleanup services may also include bird and rodent infested areas. The cleaners in this case require special experience and equipment than a typical cleaning company’s experience and equipment.

Typically, crime scene cleanups start taking place only after the coroner’s office and other government bodies releases the “scene” back to the owner or some other responsible person concerned with it. The cleaning task can not begin till the police investigation is completely finished on the contaminated scene.

In most cases crime scene cleanup is a small business activity. Mostly, small cleaning services like carpet cleaning or water damage companies add services for Crime Scene Cleanup for diversifying their activities. The prominent and recognized organizations in this field of cleaning consist of the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning, and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and the American Bio-recovery Association (ABRA).

Earlier crime scene cleanup was a loathsome job but today it has become a lucrative business. Crime scene cleanup companies can charge anywhere between $100 to $600 per hour depending on the “level of trauma” and the quantity of hazardous material that the cleaners have to deal with and dispose of.

While a crime clean up service is ultimately a business like any other, advertising and marketing your services can be tricky. In a job that involves tragic death; most companies avoid mainstream methods of advertisement. Some choose the standard phone-book route while many others advertise on the side of their vans. Most of these companies largely depend on discreet options like passing out their business cards at service-industry gatherings, police stations and funeral homes.

An important requirement for success in this industry involves being considerate towards the sensitive nature of the work. There are certain crime scene clean-up companies that provide a grief counselor to the families at no cost while others offer discount to needy people. There are many countries where this type of service is funded by government or by religious organizations.

While some people call this emerging field a social trend of commercializing death, others call it plain capitalism. But for many others it still remains an essential service, a godsend. The fact is that whether you like it or loathe it but if you ever end up with blood and brains splashed all over your bedroom walls, you will definitely be relieved that there is someone you can call to clean it up.

Trauma Cleaning: Without Standards, The Pain Can Keep Coming

2010-03-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

by Kent Berg
National Institute Decontamination Specialist

As an instructor in crime and trauma-scene recovery and a board member of the American Bio-Recovery Association, I am often approached by attorneys, the public and insurance adjusters to evaluate the service they or their clients received from other crime-scene cleanup companies.

For the most part, these are just routine questions from people who want to make sure that the service they received was within the normal parameters of good practice. But a few times each month I receive calls that just cause my stomach to knot up and my blood to boil.

With the bio-recovery industry in its 14th year, it is mind-boggling to find individuals who still decide that they are going to start-up a new company and declare themselves “experts” in crime and trauma scene cleanup without any research or training.

It is even more outrageous to find that, although they know almost nothing about the science, chemistry, biology or laws of our industry, they are charging fees that are often four or five times the industry average.

The majority of those operating in the industry today are honest, ethical professionals. It’s the few bad apples in the bio-recovery barrel, so to speak, that amplify the problems tainting our industry.

Example 1: The Hit-and-Run Guys
A husband argues with his wife in their kitchen. As she prepares supper, he grabs a shotgun and, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, blows his head off.

It is still daylight when the police arrive. In order to see better, they open the brain-splattered dining room drapes. Splatter is on the dining room and kitchen walls, but since the body fell onto the vinyl tile floor of the kitchen, the largest amount of blood pooled there.

The family asks the police about scene cleanup, and is directed to a local company. The company tells the family that payment will have to be made in cash prior to starting the job, and that the family will not be allowed inside of the house while the cleaning process takes place.

The family agrees and stays with relatives until they get the call that the job is complete and they can return. The company is long gone, and upon cursory inspection, the rooms look contaminant-free.

It is now night and, in an effort to keep neighbors from seeing into the dining room, the wife pulls the drapes closed. To the horror of the family, the drapes had apparently never been checked and still have blood and brain matter clinging to the material.

The kitchen floor appears to be clean but, when the wife walks across the floor, bright red blood spurts up between the tiles, making little puddles and polka-dotting her shoes.

If this isn’t enough to re-traumatize the family, the wife goes to remove the now-cold pot of chili from the stove and promptly throws up when she sees a 3-inch piece of her husband’s skull nestled neatly atop the pot.

The family contacted the attorney general for their state, who then called me to review the family’s statements prior to a decision on prosecution.

Example 2: The Little-Extra-on-the-Side Guys
A man who lived alone died in his bed of natural causes, but wasn’t found for several weeks. When the authorities were finally called, the decomposition could be smelled from the street.

When a crime-scene-cleanup company was called in, the man’s relatives were told that the odor had permeated everything in the house with disease. Their recommendation was that everything in the house should be removed and destroyed.

The family, already nauseated from the smell, relied on the “professional opinion” of the technicians and agreed to let them remove everything from the good silver and china to the appliances.

In short, every piece of furniture, appliance, electronic component and fixture was removed because they were declared “not salvageable.”

The relatives were then presented with a bill for approximately $40,000! If this wasn’t obscene enough, a few weeks later the family found many of the home’s contents that were supposedly “not salvageable” being sold at a local flea market.

Example 3: The Cutting-Down-on-Overhead Guys
It is standard practice for crime and trauma-scene cleanup companies to dispose of human-blood-contaminated items that can’t be salvaged. They do this by red-bagging and boxing these items and sending them to a medical waste processing facility. This includes dismantling recliners, mattresses, and other large items to fit in these containers.

In this case, a company responded to a gunshot suicide in an apartment. The victim had sat in his favorite recliner and put a pistol in his mouth. The subsequent wound bled profusely until there was no more blood for the heart to pump. This resulted in the complete saturation of the recliner.

In an apparent effort to save on labor and disposal fees, the crew decided that they would dispose of the recliner by wrapping it in plastic, putting it in the back of their truck and then dumping it in the woods of a neighboring county.

All seemed to go well until a few days later, when hunters found the chair and called police. Thinking that they had stumbled upon evidence of a homicide, the police launched a full-scale investigation that lasted for weeks and logged many detective hours before they were actually able to review the crime scene photos of every police department in the surrounding counties.

When the mystery was finally attributed to this particular crime-scene-cleanup company, not only were they slapped with fines for littering, they were saddled with reimbursing the cost of the investigation. Every law enforcement agency that heard about this dropped the company like a hot potato, and the subsequent media attention tarnished the reputation of crime-scene-cleanup companies everywhere.

I would like to emphasize the fact that these complaints are not clients disappointed with a poorly painted wall or an out-of-true vanity top. These are abuses by unscrupulous companies that are subjecting their clients to financial greed, improper disinfection, and re-traumatizing that no one should have to endure.

Could training and certification eliminate these types of abuse? Perhaps a good portion of them, but in the end, it is the honesty and character of the companies themselves that should be monitored. I believe the way to do that is to pursue standards, as well as meeting with our state legislators to create specific regulations for our industry.

Appeals panel agrees that failure to read document doesn't null contract

2010-01-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

KEITH ARNOLD, Daily Reporter Staff Writer
A Franklin County appellate panel was unable to conclude that the Franklin County Municipal Court's determination in a breach of contract suit between a specialty home-cleaning service and the next of kin of a Grove City man who died in his home was against the manifest weight of the evidence in a recent decision.

"Upon our review of the record, we find no error in the trial court's determination that an enforceable contract existed between the parties," 10th District Court of Appeals Judge Patrick McGrath wrote for the 3-0 court.

The appellate court's holding overruled Nancy Buffington's claim that the trial court was mistaken to find that the contract between her and the cleaning service was enforceable and, therefore, obligated the woman to utilize the company's services per the agreed terms.

Buffington's father died in his home on Nov. 10, 2005, case summary provided. The man's body was discovered one-and-a-half to two days after his death. Approximately one week later, the personal belongings were removed from the home and it was listed for sale.

On Jan. 14, 2006, Buffington contracted for the services of Aftermath Inc., which provides biological remediation and cleanup services. According to the contract, the woman agreed to pay for cleanup services concerning an unattended death in the Grove City home.

Aftermath's complaint alleged that after the firm rendered services, appellant refused to pay the amount due under the contract. After a trial to the bench, the trial court concluded that a valid written contract existed between the parties and that the company was entitled to payment for the services rendered in accordance with the contract. The court awarded damages in the amount of $6,189.36 to Aftermath.

The panel noted Buffington signed both a site cleanup agreement and a fee agreement for non-insurance-related jobs. Additionally, the court rejected the woman's claim there existed no evidence that she understood or agreed to biological remediation of her father's home.

"... As noted by the trial court, appellant's stated failure to read the documents prior to signing them is of no consequence as it is well-established that the failure to read the terms of a contract is not a valid defense to enforcement of the contract," as in Haller v. Borror Corp. (1990), 50 Ohio St.3d 10, 14.

"Further, appellant's argument that she was 'mistaken' equally fails because 'relief for a unilateral mistake of material fact will not be provided where such mistake is the result of the negligence of the party seeking relief,'" as in Hikmet v. Turkoglu, 10th Dist. No. 08AP-1021, 2009-Ohio-6477, and Marshall v. Beach (2001), 143 Ohio App.3d 432, 437.

Fellow 10th District Judge Susan Brown and John Connor joined McGrath to form the majority.

The case is cited as Aftermath Inc. v. Buffington, 2010-Ohio-19.

Teen Suicide Risk Factors: Parents Are Too Often Clueless

2010-01-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

By Nancy Shute

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers, and it's a tragedy that can be prevented. Given that almost 15 percent of high school students say they've seriously considered suicide in the past year, parents and friends need to know how to recognize when a teenager is in trouble and how to help.

Parents can be clueless when it comes to recognizing suicide risk factors, or at least more clueless than teens. In a new survey of teenagers and parents in Chicago and in the Kansas City, Kan., area, which appears online in Pediatrics, both parents and teenagers said that teen suicide was a problem, but not in their community. Alas, teen suicide is a universal problem; no area is immune.

The teenagers correctly said that drug and alcohol use was a big risk factor for suicide, with some even noting that drinking and drug use could be a form of self-medication or self-harm. By contrast, many of the parents shrugged off substance abuse as acceptable adolescent behavior. As one parent told the researchers: "Some parents smoke pot with their kids or allow their kids to drink."

Both teenagers and parents said that guns should be kept away from a suicidal teen. But since parents said they didn't think they could determine when a teenager was suicidal, parents should routinely lock up firearms, the researchers suggest. That makes sense. Firearms are used in 43.1 percent of teen suicides, according to 2006 data, while suffocation or hanging accounts for 44.9 percent.

The good news: Both parents and teenagers in this small survey (66 teenagers and 30 parents) said they'd like more help learning how to know when someone is at risk of committing suicide and what to do. Schools and pediatricians should be able to help, but we can all become better educated through reliable resources on the Web. These authoritative sites list typical signs of suicide risk, and they also provide questions a parent or a friend can ask a teenager to find out if he is considering killing himself. Here are good places to start:

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry lists signs and symptoms of suicidal thinking, such as saying things like "I won't be a problem for you much longer."

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to ask the child directly about suicide. "Getting the word out in the open may help your teenager think someone has heard his cries for help."

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free advice to someone considering suicide, as well as to friends and relatives, at 800-273-TALK.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness's teenage suicide page makes the point that talking with someone about suicide will not "give them the idea." "Bringing up the question of suicide and discussing it without showing shock or disapproval is one of the most helpful things you can do," the NAMI site says. "This openness shows that you are taking the individual seriously and responding to the severity of his or her distress."

Teen depression and suicide risk linked to late bedtimes and chronic sleep deprivation

2010-01-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

A report from the Jan. 1, 2010 issue of the journal Sleep found a surprising link between the typically late bedtimes of teenagers and teen depression and suicide.

Parent-set bedtimes affect teen's mental state

Adolescents with parent-set bedtimes after midnight had a 24% increased incidence of depression and a 20% increase in suicidal thoughts compared to teens with a bedtime before 10 pm.

Most of the teens in the study reported adhering to the bedtimes their parents set for them, showing that it's up to parents to give appropriate guidelines for avoiding sleep deprivation.

Length of Sleep Matters for Adolescents

The length of sleep matters, too, according to the researchers. Teenagers who reported getting less than five hours of sleep a night had a 71% higher risk of depression and a 48% higher risk of suicidal thoughts than adolescents who got 8 hours or more of sleep.

The AASM (The American Academy of Sleep Medicine) recommends nine or more hours of sleep a night for adolescents.

The study was conducted by James E. Gangwisch, PhD, assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, N.Y and colleagues and looked at over 15,000 teenagers' sleep habits and mental states. The teens in the study ranged from 12-17 years old.

Other studies indicate more benefits from increased teen sleep.

In previous studies, shorter sleep durations in children and teens have been linked to higher rates of obesity, school performance and general social well-being. And adolescents who don't get enough sleep due to insomnia are far more likely to develop mental health problems, including substance abuse.

How Suicide Cleanup is Takenup

2009-11-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

Suicide cleanup is a part of the broad based service of Crime Scene Cleanup which involves crime and trauma decontamination and restoring it to its previous state.

It is a a niche market in the cleaning industry and involves cleaning the biologically contaminated scene of one violent death like suicide, homicide or accidental death, or even the chemically contaminated anthrax exposed site or scene of a methamphetamine lab.

Broadly speaking, crime scene cleanup and suicide cleanup is almost same but there are few exeptions to this rule. Suicide cleanup requires some extra physical effort and psychological sensitivity that the technicians should be able to handle.

Following are some examples illustrating this. A suicide generally involves close range of weapon to body and so in-depth decontamination and thorough cleaning is required. The cleaners also have to handle family members who might be present at the scene searching for answers that why their beloved person decided to end his/her life. The technicians need to remove all traces of any evidence of a suicide so that no remains are present for family members and friends that might remind them of the tragedy. Restoring of a suicide scene also means clean and restore sentimental items that mean the lot to the family of the deceased and requires additional time and effort. On a visual inspection of any suicide scene you will generally find a lot of blood and bodily fluids, but invisible to the eye, a great amount of biohazard contamination is also bound to be there.

The suicide cleanup technicians have to search thoroughly in all areas, even those that can not be seen or accessed easily and remove all traces of them from the scene. Most suicide cleanup services have their staff trained in not only dealing up with decontaminating and cleaning up issues but also about dealing with family and friends with sensitivity and compassion. Since most of such companies work in association with leading insurance companies so they can even help you to bill the insurance company directly thus saving you all the hassles. A suicide cleanup consists of the following steps.

Firstly the scene should be evaluated. Next all contaminates should be located and decontaminated. A thorough search should me made again to decontaminate any traces of contaminates that might have been left out. All types of bio hazardous agents should be properly disposed of. Any microscopic remains should b treated with chemicals and the environment should be treated for odors.

Last but not the least all tools and equipments should be disinfected. But before you attempt to clean a suicide scene on your own it is always better to consult a trained professional first.

Crime Scene Leftovers Pose Problem For Sanitation

2009-06-28T14:49:00.001-07:00

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."

Crime Scene Leftovers Pose Problem For Sanitation

2009-06-28T14:44:00.001-07:00

The gruesome game of cleaning up

2009-06-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

By JODI HAUSEN Chronicle Staff Writer

Cleaning up a crime scene is a dirty, filthy and potentially hazardous job, but someone has to do it. And in Bozeman there are at least two companies that do.

When Patty Burrows started her cleaning business about 11 years ago, she had no idea she’d be relying on clove oil and Vick’s VapoRub to mask the odors she encounters on her job. She began simply cleaning offices and homes.

But after finally convincing her sister, Bev Paquet, a paramedic from Michigan, to move to Montana, the two combined their interests to start White Glove Bio-Haz - a licensed cleaning service that specializes in mopping up buildings and vehicles after the unthinkable has occurred.

“I love cleaning,” Burrows said.

“I’ve always loved dissection,” Paquet said.

“And we both have strong stomachs, so we just decided to combine our talents,” Burrows said.

The two started the niche business this past fall.

In addition to crime and trauma scene cleanup, the sisters specialize in sanitizing “gross filth” - places where landlords find rental properties left in such nasty disarray that they don’t want to touch anything themselves, for example.

Ben and Gail Yanker, owners of Buffalo Restoration Inc., have been cleaning up trauma scenes since about 1990, Ben Yanker said. Their business actually started as Buffalo Painting in the mid-1970s and evolved to include architectural restoration. The trauma-cleaning business “just kind of flowed” into the mix in 1990, after a few employees were trained in hazardous cleanup. Now, four of the Yankers’ 14 employees have the skills and knowledge to tackle such tasks.

Staying safe in a gruesome environment

Both companies have specialized equipment and protective clothing they use when attacking the gore and grime, they said.

“You just don’t want to do it yourself,” Burrows said. “It’s a huge health risk.”

Blood and bodily fluids can transmit hepatitis, HIV and other life-threatening infectious diseases, the women with White Glove said.

“When we leave a scene, there’s no more blood, no more bodily fluids, no more odor,” Paquet said. “And odor is a big thing.”

That’s where the clove oil and Vick’s come in.

The women smear the aromatic salves under their noses to veil the stench they often encounter in their work - a long-proven preventive measure employed by medics, Paquet said.

Other gear includes power saws, heat guns, disinfectants, non-porous jumpsuits, facemasks and lots and lots of bright red trash bags - but no mops.

A mop won’t work with bio-hazardous materials, Paquet said.

“You either scrub it out or it (gets tossed) out,” she said.

Not like TV

It can be a challenge, Yanker agreed.

“You see these crime scenes on TV and you see a pool of blood,” he said.

But that’s rarely what a crime scene looks like.

“There’s a lot of energy that gets released” in shooting cases, for example, Yanker said. “It’s a complicated cleanup. If there was an open door, it can cover a lot of rooms.”

And how complex a job is drives the cost, both companies said. They charge by the hour, so the ghastlier the site, the more expensive a job tends to run.

So clean up can cost a property owner from $1,000 to tens of thousands, they said.

But most jobs are covered by insurance, they added.

It’s about helping

But what truly drives both companies to pursue such macabre work is a desire to help.

“It’s the satisfaction of leaving and hoping (our clients) like it as much as I do,” Burrows said. “I love that polished, pristine finished look.”

“Truly what drives us is wanting to help people,” Yanker said. “After a tragic incident, that’s probably the last thing (loved ones) want to do. We want to do it safely to protect the value of the home or structure but respect the memory of the deceased.”

Jodi Hausen can be reached at jhausen@dailychronicle.com or 582-2630.

If you need them:

White Glove Bio-Haz: 877-388-7305 or whiteglovebiohaz.com

Buffalo Restoration Inc.: 586-8109 or buffalorestoration.com