国家地理:CSI: Crime Scene Cleaners CSI: 现场清理工

After the call to 911, once the cops and the coroner have gone, things must be put back in order, even when things will never ever be the same. It's gruesome work, but someone's got to do it. When a life ends in the worst possible way in the vicinity of Maryland or Washington DC, it's often a cue for Louise Burkhart to start work. Louise excels at a job few want and even fewer could stand to do.

I go out to scenes of homicides, suicides, decomposed 1 remains 2, or any kind of biological incident. And clean up and restore it to the situation that it was prior to the incident occurring.

The first thing we do obviously is we observe the situation because every situation is totally different. Today we are dealing 3 with a suicide. I'm Louise. Lora. Sorry to meet you like this. That's ok. The lady that we are dealing with, her husband committed a suicide, they had three children. Basically what I'm gonna do is go in, look at everything, after I see exactly what we have to deal with and we'll go ahead and start working. OK, thank you very much. Thanks.

Now Louise must grapple with the horrors that lie beyond the bedroom door. She focuses on the process.

We're taking it, go ahead with that one, take it all and, and what I am gonna do is pull the other sheets and everything wrapped on that.

They must look closely. What seems to be a tiny stain may be masking a hidden mass of residue 4.

What it does is it drips through and it can be larger underneath 5 than it is from the top surface.

If we can't probably clean something, obviously we have to remove and dispose of this medical waste.

Sometimes the crew must remove threats to help. Other times they try to shield survivors 6 from even more heartbreak.

We take high-powered lights, and check and recheck and recheck to make sure that we have everything. So that when the family comes in, they don't have to deal with something unexpected. We are looking for if there was any overspray of blood, any tissue, teeth or it may, could be anything. There's times where you, you found body, actual body parts where there'd be a nose or somebody, they shot themselves, it's their eye.

Right there, that's a piece of skull 7.

You have to search everything, in it, in the area to make sure that there isn't anything left behind.

Louise has been cleaning up after death for 11 years. It's a profitable business. Lately her son Mat has been helping 8 his mom in the field. To support herself and her children, Louise started out working on contract with the local medical examiner's office transporting bodies.

You started having people ask us when there was a homicide or suicide, well could you clean this up, and to be honest with you, I didn't think I could. However I turned around and at one point I asked him, he said yeah, we'll give it a shot, and we tried it. But we still thought, it would just be a little side, it was a little sideline kind of thing, we did not expect that there was much of a need.

But the market for postmortem cleanup crews grew with surprising speed, the new niche 9 dovetail for the sideline of Louise's.

I had another business, it's a regular maid service. And I have to say that if you are gonna be cleaning for a living, this is definitely more satisfying than being a maid.

Amid her heavy schedule with its inherent sadness, Louise tries to stay upbeat.

The best part of my job is having people say, what a difference we've made. People really have gratitude 10 for what you do. They would, after their new situations, they'd realize what it would be like if they had to do it, and they are really grateful.


coroner: A public officer whose primary function is to investigate by inquest any death thought to be of other than natural causes. 验尸官
sideline: An activity pursued in addition to one's regular occupation. 副业
postmortem: Occurring or done after death. 死后的
dovetail: A joint 11 formed by interlocking one or more such tenons and mortises. 鸽尾结合