RELEASE: Statement from Town and Gown Players

ATHENS (MyFOX ATLANTA) - The three people we lost yesterday were a part of the rich 50-year history of this theater and, more than that, were vital members of the Town and Gown family.

Ben Teague, loving husband of UGA's Dr. Fran Teague for more than 40 years, was not only a friend but also a father figure to all at the theater. One would be hard pressed to find a Town and Gowner who had not learned at least one life lesson from this wise and kind hearted man. His wife wishes to say, "Yesterday Ben was murdered, which is hard to comprehend and impossible to accept. It was a beautiful day, however, and he was in his favorite place with the people he loved." Ben was a translator of German, Russian and English.

Marie Bruce was the binding force that held the Town and Gown community together. Having worked with Town and Gown for over 20 years, at one time or another she served in every capacity at the theater, artistically and administratively, from leading lady to president of the board to chief cook and bottle washer. A local attorney, Marie was the mother of two young children.

A gentle presence, Tom Tanner breathed life into every corner of Town and Gown through his quiet diligence and astounding creativity - most would call him genius. Father of an equally amazing daughter, Tom would tell you that while he enjoyed his work as director of the Regional Dynamics Economic Modeling Laboratory at Clemson University, his heart lived and thrived in the theater.

Ben, Marie and Tom were a part of our family, and as painful as their loss is for us, we know it is even more painful for their families. We want to extend our deepest sympathy to their immediate family and close friends outside the theater community. There are no words we can use to adequately express our grief.

We would like to thank the Athens Police department and the media for their respectful treatment of this tragedy. We want to thank the American Bio Recovery Association and A1 BIO-Clean Service for the generous donation of their services in our time of need. We also want to thank the Athens Community for their support. This tragedy effects everyone in the community in some way, and we know you share in our loss. We ask that the media continue to be respectful of our privacy during this difficult time.

Custodian’s stress-disorder suit restored

Meghann M. Cuniff / Staff writer
The Spokesman-Review

A custodian who sued her school district after being forced to clean up the bloody scene of a student’s suicide had her lawsuit reinstated Tuesday by the Washington Court of Appeals.

Debbie Rothwell, who still works at Lakeside High School in Nine Mile Falls, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a lawsuit filed in May 2007 by her lawyer, William Powell, of Spokane. The 16-year-old student shot himself in the head inside the school’s main entrance in 2004. The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2008 by Spokane County Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt, who ruled the incident was covered by the Industrial Insurance Act.

But the Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, disagreed and reinstated the suit.

“There are people who do clean up the mess after one of these horrible murders or suicides happen,” Powell said Tuesday, referring to private professionals. “But the superintendent in this case chose not to do that. He should have known better.”

Along with former Superintendent Michael Green, now superintendent of the Woodland School District in Western Washington, the lawsuit names the Nine Miles Falls School District, Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer, two sheriff’s detectives and an unidentified man as defendants.

None was available for comment. Like most civil suits in Washington, the complaint seeks unspecified damages.

Rothwell’s complaints center around her task of cleaning up the suicide scene, then being asked to move a backpack she later learned belonged to the victim and contained a suspicious device that authorities detonated using a robot.

She stayed at work until after 4 a.m., cleaning the mess of blood, brain and bone alone, becoming “emotionally distraught and physically ill” before returning to the school less than four hours later at Green’s orders to serve cookies and coffee to grieving students and keep the media from the school, according to the suit.

At issue in the court decisions was whether Rothwell’s claim of post-traumatic stress disorder fell under the industrial injury act, which prohibits lawsuits based on industry injury or occupational disease.

Judges John A. Schultheis and Dennis J. Sweeney ruled it didn’t because it wasn’t the result of one work order. Her trauma grew over several days, according to their written opinion. Judge Teresa C. Kulik dissented.

A grisly business

Sometimes it's gruesome. Often it's traumatic. But someone has to clean up after murders. In America one woman and her team are glad to help. Julian Borger on the squad in white suits who see it all

The scene is familiar from a thousand cop shows and news bulletins. The chalk outline where the body lay. Yellow tape marking off the scene, and the flashing red lights as the ambulance pulls away. But what we never see is what happens next. In the wake of each brutal murder or desperate suicide, who stays behind to clear up the mess?
That is what Becky Della-Rodolfa wanted to know when a policewoman friend described a particularly nasty day at work on the troubled streets of Philadelphia.

"I said: 'Did you clean it up?'," Della-Rodolfa recalls. "She laughed at me, and she said: 'Are you kidding? The family cleans it up.' And that seemed so sad to me."

Sad, and commercially intriguing. Della-Rodolfa had a business degree and had had enough working for a government debt recovery department, sending in the bailiffs to bankrupt small enterprises. Here was the chance of filling a market niche, being her own boss, and perhaps sparing bereaved families some agony along the way.

Less than four years later, she is one of the partners in Trauma Scene Restoration, with up to 17 workers on call, ready to don white bio-hazard suits, gloves and rubber gas masks, and do what no one else is prepared to do. They will mop up the blood, scrape away human tissue, rip up floorboards, knock through walls, and restore everything until you would never guess anyone had died.

In Britain this unpleasant task is normally carried out by the police, but in the US, with a much higher rate of violent crime, the police are increasingly unwilling to handle more than they strictly need for evidence. So an industry is emerging to fill the gap, with more than 200 firms across the nation. The burgeoning business now has its own lobby group, the American Bio-Recovery Association (ABRA). It held its first convention in September in Las Vegas, where bio-recovery entrepreneurs schmoozed, swapped grisly tales and agreed to push Washington towards legislating federal standards. "We want to be regulated like any other industry," says Ron Gospodarski, ABRA's president. He is worried about the spread of cowboy outfits with no training and no safety regulations, who bulldoze their way into the homes of bereaved families.

Della-Rodolfa calls them "bleach-bottle companies" because "they just pour bleach over everything". Trauma Scene Restoration uses more sophisticated chemicals and enzymes. They arrive on the scene in a discreet white van, whereas the nearest competition in Baltimore parks outside in a bright red lorry emblazoned with the words: Crime Scene Cleanup. Unsurprisingly, the press are seldom far behind.

The delicate dilemma facing Trauma Scene Restoration was how to avoid being so crass, yet spread the word that the service existed. As Justin Jaconi, one of the company's white-suited cleaners, puts it: "What are we gonna say? 'If you die - call us?' It's one of those things - if you hear about it you hope you never have to use it."

In the end the new firm opted to place an advertisement in the Yellow Pages under house-cleaning, and Della-Rodolfa goes to police detectives conventions cvarrying golf tees inscribed with the firm's slogan - Restoring The Scene And Peace of Mind. "A lot of detectives and medical examiners play golf," she explains. This year, the firm is even sponsoring a police golf tournament.

Once ABRA has established itself, Della-Rodolfa expects it to start winning the big contracts - universities, hotel chains, the US postal service (in recent years a byword for murderous rampages by disgruntled employees) - who need a company they can trust on standby, to make the mess disappear in the event of "incidents".

Everyone in this business could spend all day reciting from the litany of horror stories which constitute their careers. If it isn't nasty they don't get called. Ron Gospodarski was summoned one night by a New York fast-food restaurant. There had been an argument in the queue. Someone got shoved and returned with a gun to shoot four people dead.

"There were blood smears along the walls and bullet holes everywhere, but the restaurant owner got us in straight away. As the medical examiners got through with each section, we moved in there, and the place was open the next day," he says.

Last week, Trauma Scene's van was outside a two-storey white house in south Philadelphia. A 300lb man, a recluse, had died in his home surrounded by the grimy bric-a-brac he had been buying from flea-markets for the past 15 years. There was plumbing, welding equipment, televisions and unidentifiable junk piled up to the ceiling in every room. The house was filthy and a pack of cats roamed at will.

By the time Della-Rodolfa reached the scene, the cats had gone and the main challenge was an infestation of maggots and cockroaches. She had to open the refrigerator, throw an insecticide canister in like a hand grenade and slam the door shut. "That was a screamer," she says, shivering at the memory.

Outside on the street, Justin Jaconi, a former demolition worker who by now is a 19-year-old veteran of putrid human debris, is talking about how to deal with the psychological hurdles involved in the job. He says: "You can't sit there and think: 'Well that sucks for that person'. If you sit there and think about it, you're going to get yourself into a bad situation."

The main challenge is to avoid either vomiting or weeping. On one of her first jobs, Della-Rodolfa started crying uncontrollably. "I just started looking at pictures of the family. The others were looking and telling me: 'Stop crying' but I just couldn't. I started to personalise it. Now I try not to look at the pictures. If they're tempting you, take them off the wall and turn them upside down."

Can there be possibly be a worse job anywhere? Della-Rodolfa does not see it that way. Firstly, Trauma Scene Restoration turned a small profit in its first year - unusual for a new small business. But more importantly, she insists, she is providing a service people desperately need at their worst imaginable moments.

"How can you walk away from the scene when the family is begging you for help? One of the first jobs I was on, the mother just hugged me for 10 minutes and kept telling me: 'You're like an angel.' People always ask me: 'How could you do it?', but it's more like 'How could you not?'"

Cleanup completed at Civic Association

April 5, 2009

Cleanup has been completed at the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, where a gunman killed 13 people and injured four before taking his own life Friday.

The American Bio-Recovery Association, a non-profit international association of crime and trauma scene professionals, said Sunday that the bio-recovery cleaning was complete. The Ipswich, Mass.-based group provided the service at no cost.

Two member companies, Disaster Clean Up of Endwell and the Bio-Recovery Corporation of New York City, donated labor and supplies to remediate the scene with a crew of six technicians.

Bio-Recovery Corporation Aids In Binghamton Crime Scene Cleanup

PRESS RELEASE
April 5th 2009

Bio-Recovery Corporation of New York City and Diaster Scene Cleanup of Endwell, NY responded to the American Civic Association on April 5th 2009 at the request of the American Bio-Recovery Association to aid the American Civic Association and the entire Binghamton community with the cleanup of the crime scene left in the aftermath of Fridays multiple homicide, suicide at their offices located at 131 Front St Binghamton, NY.

At the request of Dale Cillian, President of the non profit American Bio-Recovery Association (ABRA), the two named companies above provided all the labor and equipment to complete this cleanup in one day at no cost to the American Civic Association. "I couldn't have done this without you guys," stated Andrew Baranoski, Executive Director of the non-profit American Civic Association.

The American Bio Recovery Association, an international association of Crime & Trauma Scene Cleanup professionals strives to make these services available to all that require it throughout the United States.

Carpet cleaners clean more than just carpets

FALLS CREEK
©Courier-Express/Tri-County 2009

A decision to spend more time with their children led to a new career for Bob and Debbie Hrin. While having her own carpets professionally cleaned, Debbie Hrin thought that was a field the two could pursue and make people happy, and Carpet Spa was born. They had no idea that their plan would lead them beyond cleaning carpets, to helping people get their lives back in order after floods and cleaning up after crimes.

To initially start, the couple went to Pittsburgh for a week of training to learn how to clean carpets and upholstery, but it wasn't long before they began to expand their services and become certified in a number of other areas including biorecovery, fire clean-up and structural drying. The two attend training sessions regularly to stay up-to-date.

The school they attended in Pittsburgh set them up with a supplier, who is always available to answer questions about how to get different types of stains out.
Bob Hrin became nationally certified in biorecovery, which is pretty unique to this area, since in the past crews have had to be called in from miles away to clean up, he said.

This field requires a certain type of person since the person may be cleaning up after a traumatic event such as a crime or a serious injury. "About a year ago, I saw a need for it and felt it was something I could do," Bob Hrin said. He does have part-time people, that he trained, that help him out. It's important to be able to detach yourself from the situation when doing this type of work.
It requires specialized training on how to deal with the situation, as well as learning what may need to be reported because it could be important to the investigation. If a body is in the home for a few days before it is found, there can also be dangerous airborne pathogens present that can be breathed in, so proper precautions needed to be taken, such as wearing a face mask.
People often aren't aware of the dangers of what they can come in contact with in these situations.

To become certified in biorecovery, Bob Hrin had to learn how to disinfect for viruses and learn about the decomposition of the body. The Hrins' goal is to get things back to normal as quickly as possible for people, whether it is while doing biorecovery or structural drying.

One time, a family had been out of town for a few days and their pipes froze. It was discovered on Christmas, leading to water everywhere.The Hrins told the family to go and enjoy Christmas at a relatives' house and they worked to get everything cleaned up. In four days, the house was dry and back to normal. "You can dry out a house without tearing everything apart," Debbie Hrin said. There are machines that will dry the walls through dry wall, so the walls don't have to be torn down.
Another job required Carpet Spa to remove 15,000 gallons of water from an office building. It dried out within five days without carpets being ripped out and everything taken apart after a pipe broke. And when a second pipe broke, they went in and cleaned that up, as well.

Time is of the essence with water because the quicker the response, the less damage, and the quicker the situation is under control, Bob Hrin said. But you also have to be careful when drying out an area, because if you dry it too quickly, there can be secondary damage from condensation.

An environment that mold doesn't like has to be created, Debbie Hrin said.
Being a firefighter for the last 24 years, Bob Hrin knows first hand the mess that can be left after a fire so Carpet Spa does fire restoration, as well.
It helps to know the type of fire, whether it is a natural, synthetic or protein (food), because that determines what needs to be used on the walls, rugs and furniture to clean it. If it's a wood fire, or natural fire, that is the simplest to clean. Synthetic is the most difficult because it is oil based, Debbie Hrin said. But before they even do that, the rooms need to be dried out since usually the fire department has sprayed water into the room to put out the fire.

As a family-owned business, Carpet Spa tries to go above and beyond what is expected. "We've gone to bat for customers a lot to make sure they get what they are entitled to from their insurance company," Bob Hrin said. People being taken advantage of bothered Bob Hrin when he was a mechanic and it bothers him in the carpet business, too. "We like to see people get more for their buck," Bob Hrin said. "We always try to do a little extra, such as cleaning the throw rugs." Their priority is customer satisfaction.

Although they don't always work regular hours after an emergency, the Hrins' also clean carpets and tile by appointment and can set the times.Carpet Spa has cleaned tile and carpets in factories, restaurants, hotels and churches. For many carpet and upholstery jobs, hot water is all that is needed. Unlike many other companies, Bob and Debbie Hrin have a machine that cleans the carpet, rather than using a wand. The carpet dries in about an hour. Hot water is the most effective cleaner, but they also use a mild detergent on rugs that is safe for people and pets. People don't realize that it doesn't cost that much more to have someone do it professionally then it does to rent a machine. And if they do it themselves and there is a soap residue left behind, dirt will be attracted to it and a month later it will look worse then it does originally, Debbi Hrin said.

Death's a messy business ... somebody's got to clean it up. Hey, it's a living.

By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News

difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934

GOBS OF GORE, the stench of decomposing flesh and maggots squirming in dead bodies would make most people run, retching, the other way.

Not Tom Rohling.

The Reading man runs Tragic Solutions, a crime-scene cleanup company based in North Jersey. Rohling removes all toxic traces of suicides, homicides and other messy tragedies from the homes and businesses where they occurred.

"As bizarre as it sounds, I like it - I like to help people, and this does help a lot of people," said Rohling, a retired homicide detective who started his business about six years ago.

In an economy in which few careers seem recession-proof, crime-scene cleanup is one industry that's booming.

The burdens and blessings - yes, there are some - of the business are featured in a new movie, "Sunshine Cleaning," which opened last weekend.

But, although the movie's lead character, Rose, transforms herself overnight from unhappy maid to calamity-cleaner/crisis-counselor, experts warn that that path into the profession is perilous.

"This stuff is easy to learn and hard to master," said Dale Cillian, president of the industry's trade group, the American Bio-Recovery Association.

Cillian owns an Arizona crime-scene cleanup company, which he opened in 1985, and which he claims is the "world's oldest."

"I run into things, after 24 years, that I've never seen before," said Cillian, a retired Phoenix firefighter. "You could go out and do this tomorrow with some Windex and paper towels. But that's disaster; you're endangering yourself and your customer."

Some infectious diseases are more virulent than ever, making scenes potentially lethal for those with a stomach steely enough to grapple with the gore, experts say. That means trauma cleaners should, at a minimum, be professionally trained in how to safely contain, clean and dispose of blood-borne pathogens, experts agree.

Some blood-borne pathogens, including hepatitis B, can live in the blood even when the blood is outside the body and has dried, medical experts agree.

And bodily fluids have a way of permeating surfaces, so that even "small" scenes could require cleaners to rip out walls, floors, carpets, appliances and other things.

"Most building materials are porous," said Donna Jaconi, whose Philadelphia-based cleanup company was featured in a 2002 documentary called "Family Values." "So if you have a double homicide, all that blood's got to go somewhere - I've seen plaster walls absorb blood up to the ceiling.

"Shotgun suicides are the worst," added Jaconi, who sold her business in 2004 but still processes crime scenes as a Philadelphia police officer. "It's all through the room, up on the ceiling fan, under counters, on doorknobs."

Cillian agreed: "You could have a piece of skull five rooms down the hall."

Rohling likened trauma cleanup to "peeling layers off an onion: You keep cleaning until you don't find anything."

When cleaning a bedroom in which a man died and wasn't discovered for days, Rohling said, "I had to pull the wood floor up, then the subfloor, then the Sheetrock from the apartment below. A general rule is: The longer the body's been there, the bigger the mess."

Such scenes can require a technological trove of gear to sanitize, such as black lights that show bodily fluids invisible to the eye, thermal and ozone foggers to kill germs in the air and double-filter respirators to protect workers.

But some cleaners also employ decidedly unscientific methods to find contaminants.

"I do a 'squish test,' " said Bob O'Connor, owner of Philadelphia-based Trauma Scene Restoration. "You step on the floor and see if blood comes out between the tongue-and-groove flooring."

Jaconi's secret weapon: hydrogen peroxide.

"When you spray peroxide, it bubbles up if there's blood or bodily fluids," Jaconi said.

With homicide rates relatively steady and suicide rates climbing nationally and locally, trauma cleaning is a career with longevity - especially considering that firearms are the preferred method of people who kill themselves and others.

"It's something that people are always going to need," said Benjamin Lichtenwalner, a Marine and Iraq war veteran who opened his crime-scene cleanup company, Biotrauma Inc., in Georgia with a military buddy about three years ago.

But experts warn that such industry growth has drawn greedy ghouls looking to exploit grieving families at their most vulnerable time.

Experts suggest that mourners ask for a company's qualifications and recommendations before hiring.

Cillian's group requires that members adhere to stringent training; it counts about 70 cleanup companies nationally as members.

Tidying up after a tragedy can get expensive, sparking outcry from some victims' relatives.

"I feel taken advantage of, and I think it's a sham. They robbed me," said George Rohanna, who paid more than $2,500 for O'Connor to clean up his South Philadelphia rowhouse after his son killed himself and his girlfriend there last year.

But cleaners say that the high costs of training, insurance, equipment, waste disposal and other needs drive their rates. A shotgun suicide can cost $3,000, O'Connor said.

"If you get an invoice for $1,000, something's too good to be true," said Rohling, whose rates have ranged from $750 to $25,000, depending on the magnitude of the mess.

Further, most insurance companies and victim-assistance groups will foot the cleanup bill.

And do-it-yourselfers could come to regret not hiring a professional, cleaners warn.

"You can't just wipe up what you see, because come May or June when the weather warms, you'll be like: 'What the heck's that smell? Where are all those flies and maggots coming from?' " O'Connor said.

Despite the disgust that many people hold for the profession, many cleaners find it fulfilling.

"I've sat at the kitchen table with a woman whose husband committed suicide, and she cried for an hour with me," Rohling said. "You become a sort of counselor, a shoulder to lean on."

Lichtenwalner agreed: "We help make things better after the damage has been done."

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