Brave souls

[Desk Jockey]

We sent a crew today to a sewage job that my supervisor said was the worst he had ever seen. He said they were shoveling bags full of material (sh*t) out before they could begin any type of wash down. It wasn't a large are but it took two guys 6-hours to complete it.

I saw the crew had come back in and caught them in the lunch room eating. The crew leader was eating a bowl of chili.

Brave souls they are!!!

He said it wasn't bad with the exception of the area around the drain. He said he'd never seen it piled so high. It looked like a potters wheel but it wasn't clay.

 

[Steve Toburen]

We need photos!

Steve

PS What IS it with Topeka!

 

[dgardner]

Um, I vote for no photos, please.....

 

[Jeremy N]

Smelly money spends just like fresh money.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We need photos!

Steve

PS What IS it with Topeka!

Well, I guess you could say Topeka is full of shhhh....back flows. We did one Saturday also, it has to happen in every town like this. Heck this is spread among Paul Davis, Servicemaster, Servpro and another large independent like us here.

I asked the guys about pictures and they didn't get any. Uninsured loss. I told them to take pictures but I think they were more worried about getting the work done than taking pictures. (what were they thinking? )

Their stories were graphic enough, although I would have liked to have seen the proof of the tales they told.

 

[Hoody]

What you guys have never ate lunch standing in a few inches of shit water?

Amateurs.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Remind me never to accept a lunch invitation from you!

 

[GCCLee]

What you guys have never ate lunch standing in a few inches of shit water?

Amateurs.

Youd be cleanin up more dan Poo buddy!

Im the type a guy to puke in his PPE.


Wash me down now please!


Sent from da parking garage of dee detention center

 

[Desk Jockey]

Im the type a guy to puke in his PPE.

Yea you've become famous for calling dinosaurs. Russ looked like he'd seen a ghost when I asked where you were at MF10.

 

[GCCLee]

Yea you've become famous for calling dinosaurs. Russ looked like he'd seen a ghost when I asked where you were at MF10.

I can chest thump wit da best of em
: )


Raaaaaawwwaaaaahhhhhahahahaa, Nut ugh


Is about all he heard i think : )
What a day huh


Sent from da parking garage of dee detention center

 

[Desk Jockey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emeAZjnKuNY

 

[KevinD]

What you guys have never ate lunch standing in a few inches of shit water?

Amateurs.

After a Double Barrel Shotgun Suicide Cleanup picking bone fragments out of walls and furnishings for a few hours I stopped at the local rib joint on the way home to eat.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Damn!

 

[SMRBAP]

One of my first jobs was an auto detailer.

Of the hundreds maybe thousands of cars I've done, two stick out.

One car we used a pitchfork to remove a 4" crust of poop, food, hair, pee, and god knows what else, from a caprice classic wagon whose owner and pet lived in (was his house) for 3 years this way - amazingly - we got it cleaned. Second was a suicide by shotgun to the head in a honda hatchback. Rotting brains and blood coated the mid point of the car back through the hatch.

Having cleaned the latter personally (and I got one hell of a bonus from the boss and luch from the guys for a week) - I could probably eat a chunky beef stew while sucking the poopy water....lol.

 

[your_good_sons]

I've only done two Cat 3 losses, both times helping out someone else. They were not that bad. The one that was bad, the tenant was a chain smoker and lived there perhaps 20 years. They were found dead, "melted" into a recliner. I have no idea who removed the body/recliner. The place was horrific. While doing the estimate, I puked. This made the super puke. Then the son and daughter in law came to retrieve the personal belongings. They puked. Now there's freaking puke all over the place. I was wearing vinyl gloves and an N95 disposable dust mask to do the estimate. It does nothing in this situation. It makes things worse to put it back on after you puked, seems to work fine at holding in the odor but can't keep it out. I didn't even do this place. I did the hallway and some neighbor's apartments, because the smell carried over somewhat and they just got a regular cleaning with some mint quat in the rinse water. I think big green did it, better them than me.

 

[Ron Werner]

a lot of brave souls on here

 

[Mark Saiger]

Shotgun in mouth and head suicide.....12 x 10 bedroom of mobile home.

Ambulance crew left most of her behind in the room. Lot's of personal belongings to trip over as well as other things now....

Got called in by family to look over. Had just happened about an hour before my arrival.

Family sat in kitchen while I went in suited up.....Not a good scene!

No insurance coverage....no money.

Found help for the family and a volunteer crew of nurses, other skilled people who were used to working in Hospitals willing to tear the place apart and clean up.


I went home and had a lot of beers! Decided to be done with trauma scene clean up at that point. First one to bother me.


Just a year before that....
Was on standby with my brothers for a school shooting in our area years ago. (Me a teacher, one brother former cop...some undercover work too, and other brother former engineer) We had a diverse background for this situation.

Investigative Bureau asked if it would be ok if they used a crew from the Twin Cities they have worked with....we were more than ok with that.

Having been a teacher yet at the time, not sure how I would have handled that one!

 

[GCCLee]

The wife called me in a panic once, was down the street from her at the burger joint fixin to eat.
She had dthis sound in her voice so I asked her. Did ya find a ded guy?
Long Pause!
She replied not sure, so I changes my order to a milkshake. Partner ridin wit me insisted on a full meal : )
5 days worth of news papers infront of the door tol me what was up.
Sniff check, nothing, cracked the door and he was swollen like a beeched whale on the couch, didn't take but 1 nano second to figure that out.

We ended up callin Setv pro to handle the couch and the carpet where he leaked. From there we trashed out everyrhing. Botton half of the whole unit was Molded bad, probably what killed the feller.

We had it flipped and ready for rent in 5 days : ) only thing I saved were the sinks, commodes and tubs!

He had 1 out of state cousin and I am positive the detectives beat him to the cash stash!



Sent from da parking garage of dee detention center

 

[Desk Jockey]

We had a couple of trauma scenes that will stick with you for a good while. A distraught husband/father upset his wife was leaving him killed his wife, 3 daughters but let the son run off. You could see his path of destruction as he chased them throughout the house shooting. Lots of blood, even after the KBI had taken their evidence.

Another nasty one an elderly man that had a druggie prostitute friend that would stop by for money occasionally. When he didn't give her money one time she setup on fire. The whole place was smoked so you could see very well the bio work that needed to be done. As they are taking a part the bed room, where it originated they handle what was once his face stuck to the bedding.

The work affects you more down the road as you think about it. Doing the clean up is gruesome but its down the road that's really tougher.

 

[your_good_sons]

I am a 20 year veteran of the printing industry. In the late 1980's and early 1990's I was a pre-press technician at a newspaper. Basically when a page was complete, the editor would tell me I could shoot the page with the camera, then hand off the film to the plate maker in the press room. The copy editor I worked with had not called me in over an hour. He had not dropped off a page in the camera room. The typesetters had not heard from him either. So I go to his desk. Looks like he's asleep. Well dead, natural causes at his desk. The editor-in-chief, who is now dead himself, he only made it to 56, calls 911. The police come first. Yes, he does appear to be dead. No ambulance comes. The coroner's office says someone will be there later. The guy that comes is a local mortician. He comes late at night to drop off an obituary. It is about midnight. I found him around 9pm. We left him at his desk and covered the body with newspapers. People 10-12 feet away worked like nothing had happened. Oddly, one of the other copy editors knew he had written his own obituary some time before and it was actually on his computer. After they removed the body, they got the obit. The press had already started for the edition that got distributed about 25 miles to our north and west. They were burning plates for the edition that was distributed to the south and east. Only the cover and 1-2 inside pages change. They got his obit in the local edition. He was divorced. His kid was grown up and out of the area. He wasn't even from this area. Not one person outside of work went to his funeral. I was about 25 at the time. That was the saddest death I ever experienced.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Wow, not even his kids cared. Hopefully he left them nothing but bills!

 

[Hoody]

We use to clean a place that as an independent living apartment complex. I developed a good rapport with the maintenance guys they would unlock the units for us. Most of the time they were completely empty and we were cleaning the carpet before they were renting again. One time we were going in to clean an occupied unit, one that I've done before. The man that lived there was uh.... interesting. Very heavyset man who would lay in the middle of his living and watch pornos (I guess he would carry on even with the maintenance men in there doing work), the carpet was always severely matted and stiff there. This man also had a "lady friend" that would come to visit from time to time, I found this out about the first time we cleaned his place. I was training a new guy, and of course I get routed this guy's place. The maintenance guys let us in and I walked in first and found the guy naked and dead in the middle of the living room. The maintenance guys always got a chuckle of having to deal with him and I could hear them snickering in the hallway, but when I came back out bug eyed, they knew something was wrong. First time they've found someone dead there, and the apartment complex wasn't going to pay to have it "properly" taken care of so I pointed the maintenance guys in the right direction.

Richard is correct that they affect you years down the road.

Last and final trauma type clean up I ever did and will do is - my little cousin Terry and I found my cousin Joe hanging in his closet. His knees were bent and barely 2 inches from the ground. I remember holding/supporting him while Terry found scissors to cut him down. Joe was a big boy, mostly solid muscle but pushing 260 lbs and was a star lineman for our football team in his day, and a year younger than me. This was in 2007, I was 20 at the time - actually March 4th, 2007 so hes been gone 7 years now. Took all I had to not have him fall on top of me. Tried CPR while Terry called 911 but I knew he was already gone because he his body evacuated itself. I don't know why I felt compelled to do it but after the police did their investigation, they said we could get someone to clean it up. I went to home depot and bought bags, tyveks, masks, razor blades, etc and gutted the closet that night. Could pay me a million bucks and I still won't ever touch another trauma clean up ever again.

The company I worked for in Utah(2009-2010) wanted to start this type of work Me being the only one with experience in it they wanted me to train and head that division up. I got rather emotional when we were talking about it as a group and had to share that story with my co-workers. I ended writing protocols and training manuals but never set foot on a job site. I am thankful I had a very empathetic and compassionate boss who was very understanding of my situation. I've met some people who aren't.