Blood loss related to Biohazards
CAUTION: POWER TOOLS USED FOR BLOOD CLEANUP REQUIRE SAFE HANDLING.
A victim down for over 72 hours or so develops decontamination issues. Flies, maggots, rodents, and other animal life may add to cleaning tasks. Our mental picture takes in this information as we make estimates if work to follow, time to complete work, materials needed, and possible damage to the building and its furnishings.
A death scene may have more variations in its degree of damage than other types of violent death. Let me explain these.
Crimescenecleanup.com's link partners reflect much attention to bathrooms. To understand this concern, consider that many unattended deaths occur by heart attack in the early morning hours. Often these death scenes occur in a bathroom. Heart attack victims often die on the toilet while forcing their bowel movements.
Left unattended for days, weeks, and months, the surrounding area becomes habitat to insects and bacteria. Within a few days blood flow leads to the toilet, cabinets, and walls in the worse cases.
In a bathroom with a vinyl floor covering, blood may have reached cracked grout surrounding a toilet. In this case the toilet must come off. Perhaps blood reached a wall. In this case the baseboard comes off for inspection if not destruction. Maybe the blood wicked upward into the wall's drywall. If so, cutting a 6 inch by 18 inch piece from the drywall will expose the extent of wicking.
Blood wicking up a drywall will not travel far unless polluted by other fluids, like water or alcoholic beverages.
A concrete floor stained by migrating blood tends to absorb blood just like water, although much more slowly. Blood platelets should not penetrate far into concrete. A good scrub with a strong detergent often dislodges blood.
If the cleaners needs to create color loss, then a strong solution of bleach should follow. Attention to the strength of bleach is important. Too strong a solution may burn the cleaner's eye's and throat, and more. Bleach may be applied by hand sprayer (the best approach), bucket, or other utensil. Letting the bleach solution dwell long enough replaces the need for a strong solution. The center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends a 1:10 part of bleach to water. Neutralize the bleached floor with plain cold water.
A wood or concrete floor saturated by blood and covered by vinyl or other floor coverings, carpet and carpet padding, leads to unseen problems. For blood to reach beyond a vinyl covering, the blood must reach a crack, crevice, or seam in the vinyl.
Double Vinyl Blood Encroachment
A vinyl floor placed over an existing vinyl creates unique seal wrap-like conditions for keeping blood moist. Blood trapped between vinyl flooring fails to dry and coagulate for over two weeks in some buildings. When this occurs other fluid may have added to the invading blood.
Older apartment bathroom floors may have two layers of vinyl over wood or concrete. Under the worst conditions blood seeps between the two vinyl layers.
An adjoining wall's seam will serve for blood's encroachment between vinyl layers. If the floor happens to tilt or recedes in the exposed ingress area, blood may seep between layers.
Once blood reaches this gateway between vinyl layers, it may continue along with the gravitational pull and the incline of the floor. The blood's spread will depend upon the above as well as the amount of glue, if any, between the two vinyl surfaces. This condition rarely develops into a large contamination of the subfloor vinyl. Removal of a 2X2 foot square in the ingress area exposes the extent of blood's contamination.
Whenever cleaning blood from vinyl floors avoid using large quantities of water or solution. An unintentional wider contamination may develop by water's flow carrying blood with it.
When blood does contaminate a wide area between vinyl layers, it occurs because of poor glue patterns or water flow with the blood or both. The water flow occurs because of the following:
- Cleaner used too much solution.
- Water damage occurred during death process.
- Water damage occurred prior too or after death process.
Wood floor seams and walls soaked by blood may require demolition. Time given to "saving" a floor entails cleaning, disinfecting, and sanding the soiled wood. Sawdust captured becomes biowaste. A decision to demolish a floor follows after its contents reveal too much blood and OPIM for sanding and sealing against odors.
Rarely does an entire floor need replacing. Multiple homicides and suicides may cause conditions for replacing an entire, but exceptions to the rule.
Polyurethane and wax often protect wood from blood's soiling. Older floors soiled by blood remain protected by maintenance in many cases. Any floor with poor maintenance becomes vulnerable to blood's soiling.
Cutting the blood soiled area of a wood floor begins about 6 inches beyond the blood's appearance. Once removed the newly opened hole in the floor will expose the extent of blood's contamination. If the blood's contamination moves beyond line-of-sight testing range, then more floor must come out. This continues until all areas test free of blood. Usually areas absent blood, but near blood's soiling, receive a coat of Kilz or Zinnsser sealing.
With the mental image captured when first entering the blood scene, knowledge of the above possibilities informs our work.
TOP