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Outlook: The master of disaster

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GettyImages-569166537 Randall Bell Cropped.jpg

13/04/2023 GMT

The master of disaster

BBC World Service - Outlook, The master of disaster

What Randall Bell learned about trauma from the world’s most infamous crime scenes

What property appraiser Randall Bell learned about trauma from dealing with the world’s most infamous crime scenes and disaster sites.

In the 1990s Randall Bell had created a niche career for himself by specialising in a contrary form of real estate appraisal. He started assessing properties that had gone down in price because of natural or man-made disasters. He ended up becoming the foremost expert on valuing properties that were also crime scenes or locations of tragedies. He’s now worked on everything from the murder site of Nicole Brown Simpson to the World Trade Centre.  Randall says all the grisly things he’s seen have taught him important life lessons. Specifically, how to move through the cycles of trauma and develop resilience. He even wrote a book about it called Post-Traumatic Thriving.

There's a plane wreck lying on a beach in Iceland, south of the capital Reykjavik, and it's been there for more than forty years. How did it get there? And why do tens of thousands of people every year make the trek to find it? Outlook's Saskia Edwards went to the town of Vík to track down the story. It begins with a phone call. This report was first broadcast in November 2017.

Presenter: Saskia Edwards

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Photo: Randall Bell in 1997 Credit: Bob Grieser

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