⋅Horrific Workplace Accidents⋅

Some of the most bizarre and nightmarish scenes we are called to involve workplace accidents in which the victim is badly injured or killed. We see and clean up what is left after the victim is removed by paramedics or the coroner’s office.

 Meat Grinder Mishap

We were once called to a meat packing plant in North Carolina. In addition to slaughtering large animals, this plant also processed the meat. It therefore had a huge meat grinder on the premises. After the last slaughter shift, mechanics typically come in to inspect, clean, and repair the various machines, and on this particular night, one of the mechanics was repairing the meat grinder, which, according to the plant manager, had unexpectedly stopped and started a couple of times in the middle of a job during the previous shift.

Apparently, the mechanic thought the shift manager had shut the machine down at the breaker box when he began the repair.

But the grinder suddenly started running with the mechanic’s right arm inside the grinder, and the machine quickly dragged him in arms first. Both his arms were mauled and severed while he was still conscious, and he died from blood loss and shock before plant workers could turn the machine off and pull him out. The coroner removed most of the man’s visible body and its severed parts. Because human blood can transmit deadly bacteria to other humans, we were called in to clean and decontaminate the area and the machine, which was covered in the mechanic’s blood and tissue left behind by the coroner.

Since the coroner could not retrieve body parts lodged in the machine or move the machine to the coroner’s office, we were tasked with that grisly job.

Because the accident was under investigation by OSHA, we were instructed to preserve all parts found in or around the machine for pickup later by the coroner.

Atrium Atrocity

Another especially nasty incident of workplace accidents to which we were called happened in a very nice office park near Columbia, South Carolina, two summers ago. The call came in around 10 in the morning from police on the scene of the accident. An installer for an internet service provider, we were told, was working on the roof of a five-story medical building. Authorities believe the installer lost his footing on the upper roof, fell, and crashed through the glazed roof of the atrium, landing on the atrium’s marble lobby floor five stories below. This was an especially bloody scene because of the tremendous impact together with an entire shattered-glass ceiling.

Because the copious amount of biological material involved most of the lobby, the building could not be evacuated safely, and no one could safely enter the building through the lobby, until the scene was decontaminated.

This building had a lot of employees, visitors, and foot traffic, making it critical that the scene be cleaned and decontaminated quickly. Advanced Bio Treatment was able to have a team on site in less than an hour of the call, and while the cleanup took several hours to complete, we were able to safely contain the biohazards and cordon off the area so that people could enter and exit the building safely.

Grocery Store Gore

Around 1 AM one night last fall, we got a call from a grocery-store owner in South Georgia. A car had crashed through the storefront and traveled over 100 feet before it came to a stop, seriously injuring the driver and his passenger and killing two customers.

The driver was a teenager who had been drinking and drag racing with another teenager and lost control of his car, which plowed right through the plate glass front of the front and killed a woman and her elderly mother who were shopping inside.

This was an especially critical situation because any blood-borne pathogens on the scene presented a threat not only to people in the vicinity but also to food merchandise that could be contaminated by blood and bodily fluids. Before merchandise could be removed and stored and before the extensive repairs to the store could even begin, we had to clean and decontaminate the scene and inspect surrounding merchandise for possible contamination. Advanced Bio Treatment was on the scene before daylight, as soon as police and other investigators finished their work, and we had the scene cleaned up before lunch.

 When Workplace Accidents Happen

No matter how careful we are, workplace accidents happen, and people get critically injured and even killed. We hope you never experience a workplace accident like these, but if the unthinkable happens, please depend on Advanced Bio Treatment to handle the cleanup while you handle caring for your employees. We are available every hour of every day, we can be on the scene within an hour in most cases, and we work with your insurance company. Please call us at 800-295-1684 for a free quote.