Anyone who has ever tried to put a piece of IKEA furniture together or assemble a child’s plaything can tell you that the experience can be absurdly frustrating, but no one would think that it could actually drive a person to such a point that they make the decision to end their life…
One thing I’ve discovered, however, is that when you do what I do for a living, you see things that you would never have believed otherwise.
A fairly recent case we undertook involved the cleanup of a home in a nice, middle class neighborhood just outside of Myrtle Beach, SC. The caller was a family member who was representing a young widow who had the unfortunate need of our services in the wake of her husband’s suicide.
Once inside the home we were led down to a finished basement where we were given a brief explanation to what had caused the father of two to blow his brains all over the stairs in a enclosed portion of the garage. Apparently the victim had been having a rough time adjusting to life as a civilian, having just served a number of tours over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite months of counseling and intense rehabiltation, the young husband and father had descended into a deep depression which led to drug and alcohol abuse.
Sometimes its the smallest straw that breaks the camel’s back…
After becoming frustrated by his inability to properly built a piece of furniture for his wife, he took his .38 special and the instructions down to the garage, and seemingly in an effort to contain as much of the aftermath as possible, put the gun in his mouth and ended his life…
The cleanup proved to be very simple: the stairs were concrete and easily sanitized and the walls were quickly scrubbed and decontaminated so that no evidence of the aftermath of bullet meeting skull remained behind to remind those heartbroken family members of the inglorious end to their brave solider’s tormented life.
You don’t want to try and attempt to clean up a crime scene or accident scene. Blood and other bodily fluids can contain dangerous pathogens which pose a significant risk to human health. Our scene cleanup technicians will decontaminate and remove any blood, tissue or bodily fluids left behind.
