Grim Job in Death's Aftermath:
Crime, Trauma Ccene Cleanup is a Rapidly Growing Industry

By TIM ZATZARINY JR. Courier-Post Staff

     In Andrew Yurchuck's line of work, it's the little things that can get to you. A family picture hanging on a wall. A plate in the living room holding crumbs from a dead man's last meal. In the middle of a job, it feels like time has stopped. And then a phone rings for someone who will never answer again.

     Yurchuck cleans up the aftermath of homicides, suicides, car wrecks and natural deaths. His job begins after the police have gone and the body is taken away. Crime and trauma scene cleanup is a growing industry. More companies are entering the specialized -- and often dangerous -- field, some with dollar signs in their eyes, others because they've found workers with the unique ability to stomach a job almost no one else wants. "I deal with the worst day of people's lives every day,' said Yurchuck, owner of Bio-Clean of New Jersey, a Pitman-based company. It can take days, sometimes weeks, to scour blood and other bodily fluids or parts of body tissue from crime and trauma scenes. And for Yurchuck, even after more than 1,000 jobs the past seven years, it still isn't easy. "You've got to separate yourself from what you're doing," he said. Otherwise, it's easy for the sights and smells of death to overwhelm you."

     This past summer, after driving four hours in the middle of the night and arriving at a particularly gruesome scene involving a shotgun suicide, a shaken female employee told Yurchuck she didn't know if she could do the job. "I said, 'There's no way I can get someone else now. You're going to have to cowboy up.' " And she did, he recalled.

     Yurchuck, 35, handled his first crime-scene cleanup job in 1997. He also owns a commercial and residential cleaning business, and a friend called asking if he'd be willing to clean a room where a man had killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head. "It was absolutely awful," recalled Yurchuck, who is built like an NFL lineman and chain-smokes Parliament cigarettes. "I had no idea what I was doing." He spent two days scrubbing blood-splattered walls and floors. When he was done, it occurred to him that it was mostly up to distraught families to clean up on their own. "That's absolutely devastating," Yurchuck said. "Nobody should have to be a victim twice." He knew the work would be grim and hazardous, with direct exposure to blood and other disease-carrying fluids. But he also knew there wouldn't be a lot of competition. After six months of research, Yurchuck started Bio-Clean.  

     The company now employs 15 part-time workers formally known as bio-recovery technicians. They usually work in teams of two or three, depending on the size of the job. Turnover at Bio-Clean is low. "I look for people who work in the death industry," Yurchuck said. "I don't take somebody who's not going to be suitable to begin with." Bio-Clean's staff includes firefighters, paramedics, and a forensic anthropologist.

     When Yurchuck started Bio-Clean eight years ago, there were about a dozen companies nationwide that specialized in crime- and trauma-scene cleanup. Now there are roughly 500 businesses that do the work, said Kent Berg, co-founder of the American Bio-Recovery Association, an industry trade group based in Ipswich, Mass. Some specialize, while others are janitorial or restoration companies that have branched out into crime and trauma scene work. Berg attributes the growth partly to media attention. "Every time there's a news story or a documentary is aired, we see a real increase in the number of inquiries the association gets on how to start one of these businesses," he said. Then, for many of the curious, reality sets in. "Once they understand more about the (health and environmental) regulations and the type of scenes they're actually going to be dealing with, they decide to do something else," Berg said. "They get the impression that this is a get-rich-quick industry and that is so far from the truth." On average, Yurchuck charges $2,500 to $3,000 per job. The work normally is covered by homeowners insurance or state-run victim's assistance funds. Yurchuck understands that a family's pain can't always be wiped away like blood. He provides them with a list of free resources such as counseling and support groups. "Dealing with children is really hard," said Yurchuck, who has a 9-month-old son.

     While the bulk of Bio-Clean's work is crime- and trauma-scene cleanup, the company also has handled jobs such as removing hazardous chemicals from illegal methamphetamine labs. In November 2001, a Bio-Clean crew spent 26 hours decontaminating the mail room at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., after the facility had been exposed to anthrax. Often, cleaning up a crime or trauma scene involves much more than mopping and wiping. If blood has seeped into woodwork, floorboards have to be torn up and replaced.

     Last week, Yurchuck and technician Ryan Segal, 24, cleaned the inside of a mangled 2004 Ford Explorer at the National Auto Dealers Exchange in Bordentown. Auto dealers hire Bio-Clean to sanitize the insides of contaminated vehicles so they can be resold or stripped for parts. The blue Explorer was severely damaged, with a caved-in front end and a splintered windshield. Yurchuck didn't know if the occupants had suffered a similar fate, but there were clues. The driver's-side air bag hung from the steering wheel, stained with splotches of dried blood. The passenger-side windshield was indented with the shape of someone's head. A small trailer hitched to the back of Yurchuck's Ford Expedition carried the tools of the trade: protective suits, heavy rubber gloves, sponges, vacuums, industrial-strength disinfectants and medical waste bags. Yurchuck noticed that a small snapshot of a smiling young boy was taped to the Explorer's rearview mirror. He figured the driver is, or was, the boy's parent. "That's probably the hardest part," he said.

     Segal, who lives in Glassboro, has been learning crime- and trauma-scene cleanup for nine months after starting as a housekeeper. The job, he said, appeals to his fascination with forensics. "It's inevitable almost, just dying and somebody coming and cleaning you up," Segal said. "Some of the worst crime scenes to me are (where you think about) how it became a crime scene." Yurchuck doesn't wonder too much about those things it might be too hard to keep going to work if he did. "I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to tell my kid when he's old enough to ask, 'What does Daddy do?' " Yurchuck said. "I guess I'll just say I help people."

Reach Tim Zatzariny Jr. at (856) 251-3341 or tzatzariny@courierpost online.com
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February 9, 2004 Edition: x Page: 1A

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