Crime Scene Leftovers Pose Problem For Sanitation

Call it the Case of the Bloody Mattress.

City sanitation workers were recently left with the problem of how to dispose of a bloody mattress put out with the trash.

The mattress came from a home where police say a 37-year-old man appears to have died from self-inflicted stab wounds. The problem came when trash collectors realized they couldn't pick up a potential biohazard, but didn't want to leave it by the side of the road in a residential neighborhood.

"This was an area of concern for us because blood is considered a biohazard and not only can our trash trucks not pick it up, but it could be dangerous for people in the community," said George Hampton, a route supervisor for Hopkinsville Solid Waste Authority.

The mattress disappeared by midweek, but sanitation officials didn't take it and were still trying to make sure it was properly disposed of. The location of the mattress remained a mystery at week's end.

Sanitation workers received an anonymous call reporting a mattress, possibly covered in blood, that had been set on a curb outside of a home. That was the concern of the anonymous caller, Hampton said, who said children in the neighborhood could start to play on the mattress and come into contact with the dried blood that might have diseases.

Because there was blood on the mattress, sanitation workers couldn't haul it off with the rest of the trash.

"It raises a question for us about where we take it from here," Hampton said. "Someone has to clean up messes like these and we can't do it."

Solid Waste Superintendent Bill Bailey said sanitation workers aren't allowed to pick up possible biohazards, including blood, from the side of the road. Instead, Bailey said, the department needs to call other landfills to see who will pick up and take the items.

"Sometimes we can process and wrap it in plastic and dispose of it that way. But other times we have to contact a company that deals with disposing of medical waste."

Charlotte Write, a spokeswoman for Stericycle, a national company that specializes in medical waste disposal, said medical waste is generally burned to kill pathogens that can live in dried blood.

"It is important to dispose of all medical waste, especially waste that comes from the body, so as not to spread diseases," Write said.

Police said the families must clean up the scene of a murder or suicide or pay to have it done by private biorecovery companies.

"It doesn't sound very friendly, I know, but that's just how it has to be handled," Howie said. "Someone has to clean it up and someone has to dispose of all of this, it's just a matter of figuring out who. It's amazing that just one mattress on a curb can raise so many questions."

Someone solved sanitation's problem by taking the mattress from in front of the home. Bailey said sanitation workers didn't remove it, but finding out what became of the mattress is important. It had to be properly sterilized and disposed of.

"We can't just stick it in our landfill and be done with it," Bailey said. "Whether it's on that curb or not, it's still hazardous material."

Behind Yellow Tape: New York City Crime Scene Cleaners

By Peter O'Dowd.


RON Gos-po-dar-ski works in a Queens industrial neighborhood. Across the street from the front door of the Bio Recovery Corporation, graying tombstones rise up behind the gates of an old cemetery. It's only a coincidence, of course, but the connection is almost impossible to ignore…because inside the office, Gospodarski waits patiently for New Yorkers to die.

AX (Gospodarski 0:07)
We're sitting here hoping that something happens to somebody and we're hoping is something we can clean up. In reality it's a little weird. It's strange.

AMBI OF PRINTER PEELING OFF

NARR
His aging dot matrix printer spits out a feed from the police department. It reveals the stabbings and homicides in progress throughout the city. Today, there isn't much…just a Bank Robbery on Hill Street.

POST PRINTER AMBI

NARR
Nine years ago, Gospodarski saw an opportunity to make money from tragedy. When the police leave the scene of a murder or suicide, the body is gone, but the evidence of violence often remains.

AX (Gospodarski 0:21)
We had on in a few years back, it was in Lower Manhattan in China town where a noodle-making machine have these big blades on it, went flying. Cut the arm off another, decapitated another, cut another one to pieces. It just went flying this blade. And you know the amount of blood that's there, you walk in to these places and its like now what do we do, you know?

NARR
Families and business owners are often left to clean up. It's a trauma that no one wants to relive. And they don't have to if they hire someone else to do it.

GARAGE DOOR AMBI and RAIN

Today, Gospodarski and his partner Manny Sosa have a job lined up for 10 am.

The door to his garage creaks open. Light floods in and the cemetery slowly unveils itself behind a sheet of rain.

ENGINE STARTS CAR AMBI ROLLS UNDERNEATH THROUGHOUT

Today's job is a suicide attempt. A man in his 60s depressed over losing his job as a lawyer stabbed himself repeatedly. The result, of course, was blood. Lots of it.

AX (Gospodarski 0:09)
Blood everywhere to somebody could mean a few drops of blood to us versus you walk in and the whole place is covered and we're not prepared for it. So it goes from one extreme to the other.

NARR
The victim didn't die, but that's about all the men know of his condition. It's been almost two weeks since the accident.

LET CAR AMBI POST FOR 4 SECONDS

27-year-old Many Sosa tries not to let the gore that permeates his workdays bother him. But he says it's difficult because he sees parts of living and dying that almost no one else does. He knows, for instance, that many people spend their final moments clutching to life in the privacy of their bathrooms.

AX (Sosa 0:20)
The messiest thing I ever saw was a 300-pound guy who died in his toilet. His body fluids went through the wall and ended up on someone else's bathroom. The floor from his body fat was so greasy that I almost fell that day.

NARR
As unsettling as it may be, both men say the work also fascinates them. When Gospodarski started his business in 1998, he says he was the only company of its kind in New York City. For referrals he relies on the Medical Examiner and victim advocacy groups. It's not exactly the type of business that can depend on repeat customers. And Gospodarski says marketing is a nightmare.

AX (Gospodarski 0:12)
You can't take a billboard and put it up on he side of he road and say hey, call me when my son dies. We're the type of business where people only want to know about us when something happens. But the problem is, how do you market for that?

NARR
Still, the industry has exploded in recent years. Gospodarski credits misinformed media reports claiming unrealistic $400 dollar an hour paydays.

Dale Cillian, heads a national organization called the American Bio Recovery Association. He says making money isn't as easy as it sounds.

AX (Cillian 0:09)
You may have a few jobs that pay pretty well, but you got to remember you're not doing these jobs everyday. We're talking about something that may come once every couple of months or every couple of weeks as far as large jobs go.

NARR
Cillian says carpet cleaners or maid services go into crime scene clean up without proper training, equipment, or insurance. All these Johnny-Come-Latelys have Cillian worried. Many states don't require mandatory blood-born pathogen or hazardous material training. Dead bodies are havens for bacteria. Cillian sees start-ups dumping bloodied mattresses in city landfills. And that puts everyone at risk.

AX (Cillian 0:25)
If you want to go to extremes, there are people who use like a minivan that they put their kids in and they will transport their kids in. And they will go ahead and transport these bags of medical waste. And sometimes, they leak. So now you have these infectious bodily fluids or leaking in the back of your pickup truck that you use around your house. There is a lot of problems.

NARR
Cillian actually wants the government to impose federal regulations on the industry.

AMBI STAIR CLIMBING

On West 87th Street in Manhattan, Manny Sosa climbs the steps to a tiny forth-floor apartment.

AX (Sosa 0:03)
It's in here.

He enters a cluttered bedroom and finds a blood-stained mattress beneath a dusty canopy. At his feet, he sees more blood, spread out like an inkblot on the carpet. He starts to work. He sprays down a rocking chair with disinfectant and wipes away the blood. The soiled carpet must go, so he rips it up from the floor.

AMBI OF SPRAYING, SCRUBBING, BANGING THROUGHOUT

More than the blood, today it's the atmosphere that bothers Sosa. Inside the shadows of the canopy, a portrait of John F. Kennedy hangs above the bed. Elsewhere, every inch of wall space in the apartment is covered by photographs of old movie stars and fading prints of Van Goh. Paint hangs from the ceiling in long, thin sheets. There's a pornographic CD atop the television.

In the kitchen the man's nephew makes tea and smokes a cigarette.

His name is Cory Brackett, and he remembers the night he found his uncle nearly two weeks before.

AX (Brackett 0:42)
-He stabbed himself 30 times

-With what?

-A kitchen knife. 20 in the base of the neck, 5-7 in the stomach.

NARR
Brackett says his uncle is in psychiatric hospital. Considering his family history, none of this surprises him.

AX (Brackett)
His brother the painter starved himself. His sister was caught in a love triangle and drove her car into a wall. To quote Carey Grant, insanity doesn't run in my family, it practically gallops.

NARR
Sosa is folding up the carpet and stuffing it into a red biohazard bag. Gospodarski comes in to help fold up and duct tape the mattress.

In the next room, Brackett sits on the couch and turns on a French film.

AMBI FRENCH FLIM

He starts playing a guitar.

AMBI GUITAR MUSIC

Brackett says music helps him deal with the chaos.

AX (Brackett TK)
-Music is life….

-OK, Corey?

-Yes, sir.

-Can you come here and see?

NARR
Sosa shoulders the uncle's mattress down the stairs himself while Brackett writes a check. If his family had been victims of a crime, the state would have paid up to $2,500 for the clean up. In some cases, homeowners insurance might also foot the bill. Today, Brackett pays Gospodarski $850.

As he leaves the apartment, Gosparski explains that not every job is gruesome. Sometimes, the men are voyeurs, drawn into lives that few people were ever meant to see.

AX (Gospodarski 0:20)
OK. Professional face. See this is how it happens. At lot of times we'll get jobs where it's different and strange, spooky and freaky, whatever. Weird and when you're in there you have to maintain a professional face. But when you come out, you have to talk about it. Joke around about it.

NARR
Sosa says he lives differently as a result of his work. He has become, he says, an amateur philosopher.

AX (Sosa :16)
I don't really listen to people who complain, my life is messed up because of this. Well, go speak to that guy who is dead right now. I'm mean, that's how I see it. I mean, why complain so much about your life? Do something. I'm not saying go kill yourself, but make it better.

NARR
Of If everyone heeded Sosas advice, he'd be out of a job. So far this year, more than 100 people have been murdered in New York City. Many more killed themselves. Or tried to at least. Each of these sad realities provides Sosa and his parntner with one more chance to make a living.