Many of us can get caught up in a tense episode of CSI or NCIS, but crime scenes are a reality of life. What the crime dramas don’t show is what happens after the medical examiners pack up and move out.
Former paramedic Nate Berg is helping Minnesota residents tackle the tough job of cleaning up biohazard zones after suicides, homicides and unattended deaths.
It was after responding to numerous emergency calls and seeing the aftermath that prompted Berg to wonder, “Who cleans all this up?” He discovered that the families of the deceased were usually left to the task. “Why subject them to that additional trauma?” he asks. He envisioned a company that could provide decontamination clean-up services to families facing these situations.
A paramedic for 15 years at North Memorial, Monticello Big Lake Hospital and others, Berg retired at the end of 2010. He pursued other business ventures in the following year, but couldn’t shake his original idea of a bio-hazard cleaning company. In the spring of 2012, he went for it.
He teamed up with Randy Carey, a licensed general contractor, and the two started Scene Clean Inc., located off Highway 169 in Osseo. The company specializes in cleaning and restoring safe and sanitary environments. “Our primary concern is the health and well-being of those who have been or could be affected by the environment,” Berg says. Potential dangers might include blood or air borne pathogens, infectious diseases or bio-hazardous materials.
Scene Clean’s supply trailer is stocked with full body suits, protective gloves, eye and respiratory protection, knee pads, surgical masks, rubber boots and chemicals; all the necessary supplies to clean up a bio-hazardous environment.
Additionally, Scene Clean also covers tear gas, police squad car clean up, sewer back-ups, odor removal, feces from rodents, mold removal and hoarding clean up. And, Berg adds, “Our services are usually covered by insurance.”
A couple of months after opening, they were approached to help with the cleaning of a hoarding house. Berg's experience in hoarding situations has helped him understand the psychological distress involved. “They’re a person who hoards, not a hoarder,” Berg adds.
Scene Clean collaborates with the MN Hoarding Task Force to provide further services for the individual after a hoarding clean-out.
Doing more than cleaning up a trauma scene, most of Scene Clean’s team members are experienced EMTs, paramedics, police officers or firefighters in the public safety field, there to support families and help mitigate painful emotions.
Berg often gets feedback from families. “It means a lot to me to hear from people, to know that we did help them and do a good job,” he says.
