TRAUMA & ACCIDENT CLEANING THE NITTY GRITTY


Sarah Southworth, founder of Preston-based Specialised Cleaning Services, reveals some of the finer details that go into the work of trauma and accident cleaning, as well as how to deal with the more gruesome aspects of the job.


When a sudden death or accident occurs, often, there is little thought to what happens long after the police tape has been cleared.


But when forensic teams have left the scene, that’s when teams from Specialised Cleaning Services leap into action, and company owner, Sarah Southworth, has had her fair share of challenges.


By their very definition, trauma scenes are the result of an event that someone would find traumatic to look at and include anything from murders, suicides, assaults and any bio-hazardous events.


Sarah, who has run the business from its home in Preston, Lancashire, since it was launched in 2007, said: “When we visit a trauma scene, we usually find situations where there has been an altercation resulting in injury or where somebody has committed suicide.


“We have even assisted the police in cleaning up a property which was used as evidence in a murder trial.”


The most extreme cases visited by the


SCS teams are where there has been an undiscovered death in a property – where someone has died and the body has remained in situ for some time.


Sarah continued: “As you can imagine, these are particularly upsetting, extremely unpleasant and throw up their own set of hazards to consider.”


As well as the visual elements that her teams face, Sarah said trauma and accident cleaning can be hard on the other senses.


“The main things we have to deal with are bodily fluids, blood, faeces and furniture and floor coverings which are contaminated by the trauma which has occurred, so there is also the smell which hits you hard.


“Getting rid of the smell, along with cleaning away bodily fluids and blood,


50 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning September 2015 twitter.com/TomoCleaning


etc, is very difficult as anyone else who works in a similar industry will be able to relate to.


“Our job is to remove any sign of what has happened and to remove any biohazards that result from such an incident, and as Government regulations deem all bodily fluids to be biohazards, any blood or tissue at a trauma scene is considered a potential source of infection.”


One recent project that SCS attended involved the home of an individual who had ‘hoarded’ for a number of years.


The situation was so severe that the team were unable to enter the property through the front door, so had to access the property via a window.


“The stench was indescribable and we were faced with layers of rubbish that covered a number of hazards


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