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, decomposed¹ remains², 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 dealing³ 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 residue⁴.

What it does is it drips through and it can be larger underneath⁵ 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 survivors⁶ 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 skull⁷.

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 helping⁸ 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 niche⁹ 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 gratitude¹⁰ 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 joint¹¹ formed by interlocking one or more such tenons and mortises. 鸽尾结合

1 decomposed   

已分解的，已腐烂的

参考例句：

• A liquid is decomposed when an electric current passes through it. 当电流通过时，液体就分解。
• Water can be resolved [decomposed] into hydrogen and oxygen. 水可分解为氢和氧。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

4 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。

5 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

6 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

7 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

8 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

9 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

10 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

11 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。