9/11 - HIV - Crime Scene Cleanup

Here's a fact that the crime scene cleaner needs to keep in mind.

World-wide, more people died of HIV on 9/11 than died from the terrorist attack in New York City. I heard this while listening to the radio today. The speaker wanted to make the point that HIV is a daily event, unlike terrorism.

Here's a couple of things beyond PPE that I do in the field to reduce risks and costs:

Large quantity of dried blood in the form of volcanic ash or less:
Place paper towels upon matter, moisten with sprayer by using 1:10 bleach and water. Let dwell while working elsewhere; Remove matter and towel, and repeat if, until completed. Towels can go into sanitary sewer if not too large.

If the cleaner prefers cotton towels from Home Depot, these can be washed in a dedicated washing machine with soap and bleach following use. (If the cleaner has the stomach for this procedure!) These towels should be pretreated on-site with a soap and bleach solution in a bathtub, toilet, sink, or bucket, given dwell time, and placed in a black bag. Using this procedure, the cleaner will use handling techniques like those used in hospital laundries. (If ever placed in a red bag, cleaning materials remain in the red bag. Never remove material from a red bag.)

Once pretreated and laundered, these towels can be placed in a black bag with duct tape markings to identify it as useful cleaning material. Standard cleaning towels will last for at least 3 cleanings when laundered properly.

I don't find any conflict with the above procedures in CDC or OSHA literature.
1. The bleach solution is per CDC, and dwell time is important as a standard operating procedure.
2. The ash-or-less has been dwelling before the cleaner reaches it, relative to blood-borne pathogens' survival outside of the petri dish.
3. The sanitary sewer carries many gallons of human waste, blood and otherwise, from everyday living to mortuary and hospital business.

I also think that these procedures will fit the catastrophic cleaning needs of the general population, if and when needed because of terrorism or global warming, global dimming, or all three. Bleach, incidentally, carries an MSDS easily found in any supermarket as a universally recognized disinfectant.

Besides the above, I recall my 6 years working in a rehab environment for heavy drug users. The female toilet waste was handled as normal, the sanitary napkins, that is. Also, what came across was the struggle involved with quitting heroin and other such drugs. Even the risk of contracting HIV, HEP C, and more were not enough to stop clients from shooting-up when they left our program.

I recall a number of young women who had contracted HIV, HEP C, and other diseases. Their lives were basically ruined, at least to my way of thinking. At least, "business as usual" should have changed. Sadly, this was not, is not the case.

To think that these ladies went back into the world to share their diseases with unsuspecting husbands and boyfriends is to think in terms of forthcoming criminal-like conduct, spreading blood-borne pathogens, that is. I suppose that we could make an argument for calling their behavior a form of "terrorism," considering its consequences.

This behavior was not unique to women, but also applies to men as well. I point out the ladies because they sometimes wanted to reproduce, which is tragic to say the least.

Now, if the cleaner is careful, there should not be any great risks to cleaning trauma, crime scenes, that is. Needle-stick is by far the greatest risk known for contracting disease from blood; nothing the cleaner does will come close, unless of course there is a needle-stick from the cleaning environment, a real possibility when cleaning a scene generated by inter-venous drug users. At this writing, I have not found evidence of blood-borne pathogen transmission via occupational cuts or abrassions. Nonetheless, always work with the mind's eye to "what if." HIV is a mutating pathogen, in any case. Remember Mandel and Darwin. So, never ever place hands beyond the line-of-sight when cleaning trauma.

Education is so important for cleaning as well as the reduction of risks from blood-borne pathogens, in general. I suppose that education is just about key to everything that humans touch or somehow influence, like HIV, 9/11, and cleaning.


Eddie Evans
CrimeSceneCleanup.Com