Chicken Truck

Since the double homicide inside that apartment, many jobs have come and gone. None more satisfying then a serious bio hazard located in South Texas. When we received the first call the gentleman was in a serious panic and was saying the "health department was going to do this and that; FINES FINES. Was about all he could get out of his mouth. After he calmed down, he told me that he was the manager of an auto auction that had taken in a wrecked refrigeration trailer to an 18 wheeler. He was told that ALL the contents had been removed and parked it in the back of the lot awaiting repair and auction. Needless to say; I wouldn't be writing this if they had gotten everything out of the trailer. They left 8,000lbs of 7 week old boneless skinless (pilgrim pride)chicken breast still in the boxes and bags. The neighbors (apartments) called the health department on the auction because of the serious fowl odor and the flies. The HD was pending a cancellation of a large (bio hazardous) fine pending our cleanup and disposal of such a hazard.

I went down the afternoon we got the call,I met with my father and headed to give an estimate. I figured I would need a full face respirator just to stand the odor. I also took some decontamination solution to clean off with after I looked it over. As we turned toward the auction, I could begin to smell the truck about 4 blocks down the road. As we pulled in, my father refused to park anywhere close, he was afraid the smell would get in the truck. I walked over and climbed up into the truck, I was shocked at how little I could see. It was pitch black in that trailer even with the two doors almost ripped off. I asked for the mag lite and turned it on. It was very apparent why it was so dark in about 2 seconds after I turned the light on. Flies Flies Flies Flies, is all I can say. When I hit that light, millions of flies flew off of the walls and made the entire truck light up. The walls were covered thick, I couldn't even tell where the walls stopped and started. It was a blizzard of flies. Thank goodness I had the full face respirator on. They basically covered me in about 20 seconds. The auction manager started gagging and jumped out looking at me covered from head to toe in flies. I have to admit; I didn't think I would ever experience something like that, but I did and I loved it.... I managed to get back to the pallets that were dumped over. I pulled a box open and opened the plastic bag. To my surprise, the chicken breasts in the top boxes were completely gone!!! It was digested by the maggots and was nothing more then liquid maggot poop. We did fine actual chicken breast in the bottom boxes were the flies were unable to get too. I also noticed that the truck was sitting on an incline so ALL the pallets and boxes were sitting in fluid, condensation and maggots from the chicken has it decomposed. The guy and my father started yelling wanting to know if I passed out, so I exited. I gave my bid and the guy accepted it right there on the spot. I made a call to the health offical and let him know we would take care of it in a professional fashion. After we left I promised to buy my father lunch at a local Whataburger. As we stood in line, I noticed folks wrinkling their noses starring at me and my father. I heard one man that had just stepped up tell his wife look st the back of his shirt, he cleans up dead people. Just then I stepped up to pay for my fathers lunch. When I pulled out my wallet out of my back pocket, at least 30 flies took flight out of my pocket, I guess they had gotten stuck. The woman began gagging and ran for the door, followed by her husband cussing me. Sorry folks can't help it, we will use the drive thru next time=-).

After I got back to Elgin, I started calling all my techs, I actually had one quit, to keep from having to do the job. When it was all said and done we had myself (John), my wife and partner (Suzanne), our now Tech Supervisor (Ella) and my 73 year old father (Cecil). We started early the next morning, the first job was to remove ALL the debris, boxes, broken pallets, plastic bags etc. We had a 40 yard dumpster pulled right up to the back of the truck. Of course everything was at the opposite end of the trailer. The floor was slick with chicken fat and maggot waste. I had to fog the flies just so we could see to get into the truck. There were jagged edges where the truck had jacked knifed and torn the doors from the aluminum siding creating very dangerous edges and points. No only was there physical danger but, we also had to deal with fatigue. Each Bio-hazard technician could only be in the truck no more than 20 minutes at a time. Once we would get out we had to completely sanitize ALL of the equipment that we had on each and every time. The odor was so bad that you couldn't get away from it. I placed a "LARGE" air mover in front of us so the odor was blowing off of us the other way. 17 Hours of pure delight, when we finished the Health Department took back the ticket cleared the lot and we went home. To this day there has not been a decomposition nor any other job that has held a candle to that "Chicken Truck".