A Bad Start – Crime Scene Cleanup
It was a snowy, wet Baltimore Monday morning as Teresa pleaded with her car to crank, already running late to her first appointment. It was one of those days that you just have to take a deep breath and know all will work out, she remembers. She never thought she would find herself in the middle of a crime scene cleanup. After making car rental arrangements and cancelling her morning appointment, Teresa’s husband drove her to pick up the rental.
I kissed him goodbye and just as we were driving away, I realized that I’d left my gun in the console of my car at home. I almost didn’t drive back to get it that morning. It’s terrifying to think of how one simple decision to drive all the way back to my house changed the course of my whole life.
Frustrated, Teresa drove back to her house and transferred her gun from her car to the console between the seats of the rental car. Teresa’s father was on the police force and taught Teresa and her three sisters to shoot a handgun when they were ten years old. It was like a rite of passage, Teresa remembers, and each of the sisters waited with anticipation to be included in “shooting-range night” with their dad every other weekend. On each of their 21st birthdays, their dad both them a handgun and they got their concealed carry permit.
The day ended up being more productive than expected and Teresa left the office at her usual time feeling more upbeat about her car situation. The entire drive home, Teresa thought about the potential expense of her car repair and how this came at such an inopportune time, financially, and then her world came to an earthshaking halt.
A Carjacker’s Worst Nightmare
My front passenger side window was smashed in a single strike, and my first thought was that I’d been in an accident. It was so disorienting at first, but then this man forced his way into the car and started yelling and hitting me, telling me to get out of the car. I panicked and tried to get out of my seatbelt, but I couldn’t get it to release. He put a gun to my throat and told me to drive.
Teresa thought fast and acted quickly. In a bold move, she rear-ended a car at the very next red light, throwing the carjacker into the windshield.
I had my hand on the console and braced myself for the collision. As soon as I hit the car the console opened and I pulled out my gun and shot him in the abdomen. He’d dropped his gun in the crash and there was a struggle, but I was able to shoot him twice more, once in the groin and again through the chest which apparently exited out of the back of his neck and through a back window of the car. I’ve shot my gun thousands of times, but never at anything but a target. My dad was definitely watching down on me from heaven that day.
Crime Scene Cleanup: A Job Best Left to the Professionals
After the investigation and the towing of the car back to the rental company, Advanced Bio Treatment technicians were called upon to conduct a crime scene cleanup and death scene cleanup of the vehicle. Very little physical damage had been done to the car by the perpetrator and the collision; there were two broken windows, a front bumper that needed replacing, and a broken console lid. But the mess created by the blood loss was extensive. Blood had not only saturated the cloth seats and the flooring of the vehicle, but it had also splattered all over the roof liner, steering column, dashboard components, and the passenger door. The entire radio and climate control console had to be disassembled in order to ensure that all blood and biological material was removed. The blood soaked floor mats were discarded along with the other biohazard waste material and the floor carpeting was removed to clean the blood that had penetrated through.The cleanup was especially rigorous due to the amount of blood and the fact that it had seeped for hours throughout the investigation into the crevices below the car’s carpeting and behind buttons on the electronics console and into the cars ventilation system through the air vents. Timely blood cleanup is essential and can be a dangerous matter because of the potential spread of communicable disease, so seeking professional help is necessary when dealing with blood and other body fluids remaining from a trauma scene, car accident, homicide, or suicide.
Advanced Bio Treatment technicians adhere to very specific practices to avoid exposure to and transmission of viruses and bacteria such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, Ebola, Zika virus, and HIV, involving the use of specialized equipment that ensures the complete removal and decontamination of all exposed areas in addition to using devices with visual indicators of any remaining biohazard material invisible to the naked eye.
We at Advanced Bio Treatment are proud of the relationships formed with businesses and families in Maryland. We offer crime scene cleanup, death cleanup, trauma cleanup, as well as murder and suicide cleanup throughout the United States. We are here to help you recover from the unexpected tragedies that we must all sometimes face. Call us and speak with one of our highly trained representatives any time of day, any day of the year at 1-800-295-1684.
