What If there was No One to Help?

By Don M. McNulty

 What if there was no one to help is the question I asked myself many times while cleaning up-traumatic death scenes. It is the driving force of my purpose - the purpose of ministry. I’ve developed a group of unique skill sets that allow me to help families and individuals in a great time of need.

Over the years as a young man, I remember watching television, seeing Red Cross Volunteers responding to disasters all over the world, thinking what a neat thing to do with your life. I pictured myself being one of those people being rushed off to exotic places to help, so maybe all this that I do; in cleaning traumatic death scenes is an answer to that calling.

What was before my company and now every other company serving their respective communities? I’ve told my students all over North America teaching The Basic Bio technician Course; humans have been cleaning up their dead since Cain and Abel, but now they have us.

On one occasion, I was speaking to a contractor working in my home. After he asked, I told him what I did for a living. It was then he said to me that both his father and brother, some five years apart, committed suicide. I immediately asked where they lived and found it was in a neighboring town we serviced. I then asked if it was my crew and me who performed the remediation services.

He told me, no sir. His mother felt this was a task best handled by the family. So he and his mother did the work. I’m not sure I can describe how incredibly sad this made me, as I watched his eyes fill with tears and hear his voice start to quiver. All I could say was how very sorry I was for his loss and that his mother felt she couldn’t turn to others for help.

It was this encounter that drove me to establish our company’s motto; “No one should be victimized twice.”

Listening to the emotional damage and stress was heart-wrenching causing continued suffering for him to this day. I prodded further, asking, are you and your mother okay?  The worker looked up, with a tear now running down his cheek to say, “I guess as well as expected.”

I said no more. Although I know talking about these events is cathartic, this wasn’t the time or the place for a proper debriefing. I knew the man came to the end of his story, so I left the room while he continued with his work. If he wanted to talk more about it, I’m sure he would have let me know.

Cleaning up the damage left behind from traumatic events was the way most families, back in the day, handled these situations. In more modern times, people felt the local government dealt with the cleanup. No one ever thinks of this work until they are facing the cold hard reality; there are no government services offered in the aftermath of a harrowing event. As law enforcement is leaving these scenes, someone invariably asks, “Who’s coming in to clean all this up?” Can you imagine being the last officer out the door and being confronted by a heart-broken family member asking these questions and knowing what you have to answer?

I love being the “go-to” person, the one who has the answer or who can find the answer. It was a question put to me as I turned down the call for help that stopped me in my tracks. “Sir, you’re the twelfth person I called if you can’t help me, who can?”

That question was it. I had no answer, but I had a calling, and it was staring me in the face. Considering what happened to people once I refused their call for help never crossed my mind until that time. Who would they call? What was left for them to do?

Today, I can report there are thousands of trained technicians who help the people and families in their communities around the industrialized world. I’ve played a considerable part in their training, and I take boundless satisfaction knowing there are others to take up the mantle of ministry in times of great need.