Understanding Unattended Death
Guest blog by John Tarr
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This is a very unusual sounding word and frankly, not one I had heard before until I started designing AZ-BIO’s website. One of the things I find interesting as a website designer is how much I learn about a business that I am making this online presence for.
As I built different pages and blogs (like this one) I landed on this two-word term, so I knew I would have to investigate.
When you add a third word to that phrase like “cleanup” you know what one of the services AZ-BIO offers but it still did not get me any closer to expanding my vocabulary in an understanding way. The term “Unattended Death Cleanup” almost sounded counter-intuitive.
I understood death and the word cleanup but “unattended”? Who came up with that word?
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Understanding Unattended Death
I decided to go to Google for help. (where else). The first place I found was Quora a place for word definitions. They got me in the ballgame right off the bat. This is what they said:
“Unattended Death means the death which is not attended or discovered by anyone. An unattended death happens when someone dies alone. Discovery of dead body may take hours, days, weeks or even months.”
This explanation seemed very sad to me. Death is sad in and of itself but dying with no one around for days, weeks or months is hard to comprehend that so many individuals do not have people in their lives that would not notice they are missing.
There are a number of reasons for unattended death such as:
- Suicide
- Accident
- Natural Causes like a fatal heart attack or stroke
- Homicide
By designing AZ-BIO’s website I have found that you should treat a dead body very carefully because it can cause all kind of problems depending on how long the body has lain there before being discovered and how hot the environment it has been in.
Dealing with the cleanup from a corpse is something that is best left to a professional such as AZ-BIO. It is not for the faint of heart nor do most people have the kind of equipment and chemicals to deal with this heavy-duty situation.
Unfortunately, once the remains of an unattended death are discovered, and the relevant authorities notified, the task of cleaning up falls on the family of the deceased or the owner of the property where the individual died. Cleaning up the scene can prove to be problematic for various reasons:
- The disturbing nature of decomposition: depending on the conditions, the body of an unattended death can begin to decay at a rapid rate. This occurs when the body starts to release chemicals that induce bloating, decomposition and decay.
- Health and safety hazards: a decaying body can be extremely hazardous to the living, especially once the decomposition process begins. Bacteria and other biological pathogens released after death can become airborne and pose serious health risks when inhaled. This can affect current as well as future residents and must be handled by professionals.
There a number of things you should do if you come across an unattended death:
- Contact Authorities.
- Arrange to transport the body.
- Reach out to friends and family.
- DO NOT do the cleaning yourself or a friend but hire a professional do the cleanup.
- Seek counseling.
The Need to Hire Crime Scene Cleanup Specialists
When faced with an unattended death, you can still have your property restored to full functionality. Thanks to bio-hazard cleanup companies; your property can be professionally cleaned. These experts have the gear, training and licenses to restore scenes where unattended deaths occurred. You can count on them to remove all traces of blood, bodily fluids, blood-borne pathogens and other hazardous bio-hazards from the scene. When specialists leave your premises, it will be fully restored. Items that are cleaned are thoroughly decontaminated while those that you’ll need to get rid of are disposed of properly.
Nobody should have to deal with an unattended death, much less clean up after losing their loved one. Ultimately, an unattended death means that you have to retain the services of professional remediation specialists.
Many times, an autopsy will have to be done to find out the cause of death because no doctor or professional was present at the time of death to confirm if it was natural causes, suicide or homicide.
To find out more on how we deal with this issue go here to AZ-BIO Unattended Death Cleanup
This guest blog article was written by website designer, John Tarr. You can find him here at Best Website Solutions.
