E11: The Crime-Scene Cleaner Working: Syracuse

Meet Luke Parkhurst of Disaster Cleanup. The 40-person company specializes in biohazard, fire, mold, and water damage jobs within a two-hour radius of Syracuse. The biohazard jobs are the most difficult of the bunch. Many of those cases involve the suicide of a family member. But even though he's scrubbed away blood and bodily fluids for 14 years, Luke believes those years of cleaning up after one of the saddest days a person can face hasn't changed him. He's married with two kids — a six- and seven-year-old — and joined Disaster Cleanup two years ago. He's held jobs in welding and factory work and can usually be found around the company warehouse wearing his blue-denim overalls. And while this particular job hasn't changed him, Parkhurst says it "makes you think about all the other jobs that people are doing that you don't want to think about."

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