Pepe Ortiz, a worker with the Bio-Recovery Corporation, in a Long Island City apartment in 2005 where the resident died a month earlier. (Photo: Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)
On Wednesday, I spent a day with the friendly people at the Bio-Recovery Corporation, a Long Island City-based company specializing in what its business card succinctly describes as “crime and death scene cleanup.”It was an uneventful day, which came as something of a relief, considering what can happen on a busy day.
On Wednesday, I spent a day with the friendly people at the Bio-Recovery Corporation, a Long Island City-based company specializing in what its business card succinctly describes as “crime and death scene cleanup.”It was an uneventful day, which came as something of a relief, considering what can happen on a busy day.
One thing that may not come through in a story like this is how funny the Bio-Recovery president, Ron Gospodarski, and his employee, Manny Sosa, could be as I hung around with them. Mr. Gospodarski is genuinely cheerful, even jovial at times, though it feels a little strange to describe him that way in this context. Part of it is that, as a longtime paramedic, he has been confronting the fragility of life for years, and has long since gotten used to the sight of blood. Part of it, probably, is his outlook on the world, which he described this way: “I’m a realist. We all live, we all die, we all do funky things, we all do things we wish we hadn’t. That’s life.”
All that can lead to some strange and, yes, comical exchanges, like when Mr. Gospodarski spoke, via speaker phone, to a friend who was telling him about a fresh crime scene. Mr. Gospodarski, in the middle of a slow work day, set the tone by asking, “Did you make sure to tell him to bleed all over the place?” Word over the scanner was that the victim was “not likely” –- shorthand meaning not likely to die. “Shot in the neck,” the friend said.
“In the neck?” Mr. Gospodarski said. “He’s not likely. How is he shot in the neck?”
“Listen,” the friend deadpanned. “The neck has a lot of different locations.”
“In the neck?” Mr. Gospodarski said. “He’s not likely. How is he shot in the neck?”
“Listen,” the friend deadpanned. “The neck has a lot of different locations.”
This conversation probably loses some of its charm out of context. I had planned to work a few more of these kinds of moments into this week’s Dispatches feature for The City section of the paper, but they just wound up looking flat. Or they made the Bio-Recovery people, who showed plenty of care and sensitivity during the day I spent with them, look like ghouls, which they aren’t.
Thinking about this, what you might call the “you had to be there” effect, led me to contact Dr. Rod Martin , a professor of clinical psychology who teaches at the University of Western Ontario.
Dr. Martin wrote a book called “The Psychology of Humor,” so gallows humor is something he knows a lot about. In general, he said, humor is a form of play, of making serious things nonserious. Jokes centered on aggression or sex, for example, make issues that tend to arouse a lot of anxiety in people feel less threatening, he said.
Dr. Martin wrote a book called “The Psychology of Humor,” so gallows humor is something he knows a lot about. In general, he said, humor is a form of play, of making serious things nonserious. Jokes centered on aggression or sex, for example, make issues that tend to arouse a lot of anxiety in people feel less threatening, he said.
“Some people have referred to it as an emotional anesthesia,” Dr. Martin added. “If you laugh at something, at least for that moment, you’re not feeling the emotional impact of it.”
He actually knows a bit about the topic firsthand, he said. His wife is a nurse, and she has told him that the things she and her colleagues say among themselves would be shocking to outsiders. You always hear similar things about the police, and this kind of thing is common in newsrooms too.
He actually knows a bit about the topic firsthand, he said. His wife is a nurse, and she has told him that the things she and her colleagues say among themselves would be shocking to outsiders. You always hear similar things about the police, and this kind of thing is common in newsrooms too.
Dr. Martin said interviews with men who were prisoners of war in Vietnam indicated that joking about their situation was part of what allowed them to cope.
“In some contexts, the same humor could be seen as inappropriate — aggressive and offensive,” he said. “But in other contexts it could be essential to survive.”
“In some contexts, the same humor could be seen as inappropriate — aggressive and offensive,” he said. “But in other contexts it could be essential to survive.”
None of this, of course, is what anyone in a high-pressure job is thinking as he is cracking a dark joke. “The fact that it is unconscious is what makes it work so well,” Dr. Martin said. “Because people can fool themselves. They’ve convinced themselves that it was all just a joke.”
One last function of all the joking, he said, is as a kind of social lubricant in the most psychologically difficult situations. “You don’t start laughing unless there are other people to laugh with,” he said. “Probably if those guys were at the crime scenes by themselves, they wouldn’t be laughing. It’s with other people, and it’s kind of sharing the discomfort.”
One last thing: On Wednesday afternoon, in the Bio-Recovery van on the way back from picking up a load of dirty sheets from a Midtown hotel, we were stuck in traffic on the Upper East Side. Somebody spotted a lady talking with her doorman on the sidewalk, wearing a full-length fur coat and a fur hat that could only be described as gigantic. There was so much fur on her head that she looked as if she might tip over.
One last function of all the joking, he said, is as a kind of social lubricant in the most psychologically difficult situations. “You don’t start laughing unless there are other people to laugh with,” he said. “Probably if those guys were at the crime scenes by themselves, they wouldn’t be laughing. It’s with other people, and it’s kind of sharing the discomfort.”
One last thing: On Wednesday afternoon, in the Bio-Recovery van on the way back from picking up a load of dirty sheets from a Midtown hotel, we were stuck in traffic on the Upper East Side. Somebody spotted a lady talking with her doorman on the sidewalk, wearing a full-length fur coat and a fur hat that could only be described as gigantic. There was so much fur on her head that she looked as if she might tip over.
We all spotted her at the same time and there was a moment of surprised silence, until Manny Sosa, from the back of the van, grumbled, “I might have to call PETA on this address.”
Everybody cracked up, and for a second, we forgot about the traffic jam.
Everybody cracked up, and for a second, we forgot about the traffic jam.
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