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Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News; 9/16/2003 The News-Herald, Willoughby, Ohio Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News September 16, 2003--When Mike Warner heard about a new company that specializes in crime scene cleanup, the Concord Township fire chief was relieved. The cleanup service offered by Bio Safe North America Inc. would eliminate a lot of headaches for firefighters, who often end up removing bloodstains and debris from crime and trauma scenes. "We clean up a lot of blood and body parts from a trauma scene," Warner said, noting firefighters go beyond the call of duty because of their compassion for the victim's family. Concord Township-based Bio Safe, which opened Sept. 1, focuses on cleaning up the sites of shootings, vehicle crashes and suicides, drug houses, methamphetamine labs and other crime scenes. Extraction of carcasses, bird droppings, animal feces and such other unhygienic items also is done by Bio Safe, said James J. Venaleck, president of the company. Birds and critters build nests around church steeples, bell towers and in attics. And their drippings can cause heath hazards, he said. Armed with a custom-made truck featuring a high-powered pressure washer, an ozone-generating machine, a scrubber and other cleaning tools, the company sanitizes residential and industrial buildings. Venaleck said his venture is not a traditional house-cleaning service. In case of a crime, law enforcement conduct investigations and release the scene after collecting evidences. And the property owner is left with the dirty job of removing the blood stains and debris and decontaminating the area. It'll be heart-wrenching for the owner if the deceased was a relative or a friend, he said. "It's a daunting task for people to clean up in the aftermath of a crime," he said. Venaleck, who is a ranger for the Lake Metroparks, said he has seen many accidents and crime scenes that were left unclean after investigation. He had been planning on starting a trauma and crime scene cleanup service for some time. But the impetus to push forward with his idea came while watching the enormity of the cleanup of Ground Zero in New York in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. "If an accident takes place in a plant, the building maintenance staffs are put in charge of cleaning up the blood and bio debris," said Venaleck, who received training from Bio Cleaning Association of America in Missouri. Decontamination and sterilization of sites are the other services offered by the company. Armed with a team of four trained staff, the company removes blood, bone fragments, teeth, skin and other human remains. It's followed by decontamination. Items removed from a site are disposed of as medical wastes and not thrown in landfills, according to Venaleck. For more information, Bio Safe can be reached at (440) 392-6066. To see more of The News-Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.news-herald.com (c) 2003, The News-Herald, Willoughby, Ohio. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. COPYRIGHT
2003 Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News
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