Marine reservist Ryan Sawyer was at a college frat house, a red Solo cup in his hand, when his platoon sergeant called in October 2004.
“Sawyer, pack your stuff. You’re going to Iraq.”
His assignment was one he hadn’t considered: Scraping up bodies in battle zones.
He’d hoped to get through college, serve his country over the summers and weekends. But it wasn’t long before he was unloading the first of many dead from a helicopter.
“I remember, vividly, a single drop of blood came out of one of the body bags and landed on my boot,” he said. “That moment, it really, really dawned on me that this is a real situation where real Americans are losing their lives.”
A roulette wheel of thoughts and emotions spun through the young Marine’s mind, settling on one: “Game on. It’s time to get serious about this.”
Home from war, Sawyer, 24, still deals with blood splatters.
He does it through Biotrauma Inc., a small company in Gainesville, Ga., he founded in 2006 with a war buddy, Benjamin Lichtenwalner, 27.
With a staff of 10, they clean up death scenes throughout the Southeastern U.S.
“When we go into a suicide, we see stacks of bills on the table,” Lichtenwalner said. “You can see they haven’t attended to their financial affairs for some time. That’s fairly common. . . . I think a lot of it has to do with financial pressures.”
Suicide is the 11th-leading manner of death, with someone in America killing themselves every 15.8 minutes, according to The American Association of Suicidology.
Statistics are unavailable to establish whether the recession has brought more suicides. Data lags by more than three years, and most suicides go unreported in the media.
Anecdotally, news has been rife with high-profile financiers, investment managers and corporate executives ending their lives, including David Kellermann, who was acting chief financial officer at embattled Freddie Mac.
Suicide rates have increased during economic crises, peaking in 1933 as unemployment reached 25 percent, according to the suicidology group.
The most common method is with a gun. That can be messy.
Sawyer and Lichtenwalner got used to this in Iraq.
Most people dealing with a personal tragedy try to do it themselves, suffering intense emotional exposure.
Biotrauma thoroughly cleans and disinfects, direct-billing homeowners’ insurance policies for services costing from $1,000 to $10,000.
Most of Biotrauma’s business is residential, though people die in hotel rooms too. Biotrauma has trouble getting their business.
“Hotels, wanting to be cheap, call in somebody with a mop and a bucket,” he explained. “That happens all the time.”
Rooms may look clean — but maybe they aren’t.
“Hepatitis B can live outside the body for up to two weeks,” Lichtenwalner said.
Sawyer and Lichtenwalner say Biotrauma is more than just another dirty business. They are often on the scene as the police are leaving and the clients are overwhelmed with shock and grief. For the two Marines, it’s a mission.
“That is providing real closure,” Sawyer said.
Al Lewis: 201-938-5266 or al.lewis@dowjones.com. Read Al’s blog at .
