Trauma/Crime Scene Clean Up

[Larky]

Hello.

Well, after weeks of hassling various people I managed to get some cleaning companies interested in having me along to document the job. I have two companies which have said yes, but as you can imagine I have no idea how to shoot it. Let me explain.

Company No.1 does industrial clean up, floods, fire etc. Large scale work when something major has gone wrong. Company No.2 does trauma/crime scene clean up. Normally smaller rooms with suicides or train clean up after you know what has happened. I'm not at all squeamish.

The look I was wanting to go for was colour, sharp, crisp, I'll no doubt have to use flash. I'll be shooting digital for all the outdoor and industrial stuff, film in old metal fully mechanical SLR's for the trauma as they have to be chemically cleaned after the shoot, so will no doubt stop working. It's a legal thing to stop disease spreading.

Now, I guess not many people here have shot trauma but maybe you have, I guess in many ways it'll be similar to shooting anything else. But I'm still asking for advice, as this is far removed from anything I've done. I rarely use a flash, so will need to practice with that.

Basically, can anyone offer words of wisdom?

 

[antiquark]

No wisdom here, but maybe a waterproof housing will be useful in this situation. Then it will be easy to clean without sacrificing the camera.

Also, if you use a mechanical camera, won't the removal of the film be a problem?

 

[newspaperguy]

FYI - I shot hundreds of crime scenes - homicides, suicides, assaults, robberies (Army C.I.D.) and more car crashes (newspapers) than I want to remember, all with the camera of the day. Unless you're in a toxic situation (extreme hazmat), why are you concerned about your gear? Not a put down... curious.

 

[Larky]

Hello.

Gross cleanup, at least in the UK, is now incredibly health and safety conscious. Because of the airborne contaminants, blood diseases, strange other stuff I know little about and because we now have so many killer bugs that can survive outside of the body and in dried blood for many days everything that is exposed to the air in the room has to be incinerated of cleaned by incredibly harsh chemicals. In an outside death scene it's not as bad if you stay outside of a certain distance, it's the suicide in a room situations that will be problematic.

I've researched and found I can get chemical covers for my gear which cover the entire thing up and get disposed of every time I leave. I'll have to let the filter get cleaned though so I'll have to take a few spares.

I guess it wont always be like this, but for some no doubt it will. For example a lot of the suicides and deaths are drug related, the victims regularly have HIV/Hepatitis etc. It's the law that it all goes to the big oven.

RE film, I thought that was odd too but apparently that's just the way it was done. I guess viral strains are allergic to film, in the same way I'm allergic to Turnips.

 

[sevo]

I guess it wont always be like this, but for some no doubt it will. For example a lot of the suicides and deaths are drug related, the victims regularly have HIV/Hepatitis etc. It's the law that it all goes to the big oven.

I have the growing feeling that the UK is turning the most paranoid place in the world... Unless you attempt to enhance your reportages by having sexual intercourse with any corpse you run across (which you won't - cleanup is hours to days after it has been removed) there is no chance of getting HIV or Hepatitis from a death scene cleanup.

FWIW, I've done my volunteer years as a EMT, mostly occupied with IV drug addicts and HIV patients, and even while they're alive, you are perfectly safe as long as you adhere to everyday standards of hygiene - if any, you and your skin flora are a risk for the patient, and any protective clothing required caters for that.

Sevo