Bio-Recovery: The R&R Interview

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

It’s a Living: Biohazard Cleaning Man

Finding a loved one’s body is traumatic enough, Sean Small said. Survivors shouldn’t have to relive the trauma of cleaning up the site as well.

“It’s like a sucker punch, a second hit … You’re in a fog,” said Small, the owner and operator of Yukon, OK-based Trauma Klean. “We, at least, have an emotional disconnect and see it simply as a job that needs to be done. But if it was a family member having to do this? I just cannot imagine.”

Small’s small business focuses on what he described as “a little beyond what you’d imagine as janitorial services. In fact, we’re a lot beyond that.”

There’s no polite way to discuss his job with the squeamish. Small cleans up biohazardous materials that are exposed to the environment during or after a person’s death, such as blood, urine, bile, and internal organs. Depending on the circumstances of death, those materials can infect a large area.

Most people cannot psychologically deal with those elements on a good day, much less in mourning. That’s where Small steps in, with protective gear and specialized industrial cleaning supplies and containment. His service provides both an emotional safety zone and another of health because Small and his small crew keep others from coming into contact with potentially infectious pathogens.

The human body can go through disturbing and sometimes explosive changes after the spirit has passed on, Small said. Internally, bacteria break down tissues and produce gases; externally, vermin may be attracted.

“When you get past the gross aspect of it, body decomposition is actually kind of a neat process. It’s nature doing what it’s supposed to do,” he said.

Small has adapted, of course; nothing fazes him. He said he almost never experiences the gag reflex associated with disgust while he’s in professional mode—the latest involved the memory of a man who was found in his bathroom after about six weeks.

One of his peers said it’s the nonhuman odors that cause the most difficulty, such as cleaning up a hoarder’s home, someone who kept more than 40 cats indoors.

Small was first drawn to the job after seeing it portrayed in police crime television shows such as CSI. The 2007 movie Cleaner, starring Samuel L. Jackson, also featured the profession, while a less savory interpretation appeared in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, also starring Jackson and John Travolta.

He’s been at the job for about three years and is still struggling to gain wider market recognition. Trauma Klean is seen primarily as the follow-up service for crime scenes after the police have finished their investigation and a medical examiner has removed the body.

“But a lot of our jobs have nothing to do with crime. Sometimes it’s as simple as an unattended death, someone passing away and it takes several days or weeks before anyone notices,” he said, as was the case with his own father. The body was found by church members.

“Once you get past the grossness, you begin to realize there’s a real need for this,” Small said. “I think that’s what appealed to me the most: the opportunity to help someone get through what I went through.”



Reprinted with permission from The Journal Record. Originally posted January 13, 2010. Photo by Maike Sabolich.