Does Death Have A Smell?

[AngelfireRN]

Just wondering if anyone else has experiences like this?

I first noticed it when I was in nursing school, and we were orienting on the floor. We would go in a room with a patient, and I would smell this sicky-sweet odor, and around a week later, the patient would be dead.

It continues to this day. I have smelled Lord knows how many smells, but this one almost defies description. The only way I can compare it to anything is to think of really concentrated Swish and Swallow, that nystatin stuff. I love the way it smells, but this other smell is like S&S overkill.

I finally started piecing it together when I noticed a pattern with the smell and the demise. My instructors never could understand why I would walk into a room to help, and get a weird look on my face. My co-workers later could not understand it, they just knew something was up by the look on my face. It was especially sad when the patient was thought to be improving.

It happened with my FIL. DH knew that SOMETHING happened to me when a person was about to pass, and I had already told him that I was not going to tell him if I sensed anything. The last time I saw FIL was the only time I did not hug him. I would have bawled, and given it away. I regret not hugging him, but not like I would regret giving my MIL and DH 4 days of a deathwatch. Afterward, as we were headed to the funeral home, DH looked at me, all teary, and said "You knew, didn't you? You've been weird since we saw him the last time."

Smelled it with my Grandmother, and squalled for 3 days solid, before there was really anything to squall about.

And I smell it still, with patients I see in the hospital. I hate this. It's as bad as getting that gut feeling to pull the code cart outside the lady's room. There is no more helpless feeling than knowing what is going to happen, and knowing just as well that you're powerless to stop it.

Anyone else gets this, or get an inkling as to the demise of a patient? I've heard about bad patients asking to have a BM, and nurses knowing that that was it, we've all heard about the "last turn", but does anyone else smell anything beforehand?

Or am I just a freak?

[nebrgirl]

My sister passed away 3 years ago in a hospice facility...I thought the smell then was particular to some cleaning product they were using...now that I work in a hopital I've noticed it again a couple of times....but I didn't connect the dots that is what I was smelling until now....thanks I think.

Nebrgirl

[XingtheBBB, BSN, RN]

I can only smell it after, but once I smell it, I smell it all day until I get home and shower. Once I shook my uniform at my hubby saying Really? You can't smell that?? I think he was ready to have me committed, so I never brought it up again. I just put things in the laundry quiet;y and go about my day.

[rotteluvr31, ADN, RN]

XingtheBBB said:

I can only smell it after, but once I smell it, I smell it all day until I get home and shower.

Ahh yes... lingering smells in my nose all day. Explains why I keep Vicks Vaporub in my locker at work.

[4theBetterGetter, RN]

You are not crazy. Yes, death has a smell just not everyone can smell it. i personally think it smells like acetone.

[BabyRN2Be]

AngelfireRN said:

Anyone else get this, or get an inkling as to the demise of a patient? I've heard about bad patients asking to have a BM, and nurses knowing that that was it, we've all heard about the "last turn", but does anyone else smell anything beforehand?

Or am I just a freak?

I have very limited experience with this. Once I was in the hospital with a head injury and was placed in a room with a patient who was actively dying. A very sweet relative of hers was talking to us, what had happened with this patient, and when lunch was served, she came over to see what I was eating. I told her it was beef broth. She said, "The reason why I ask is that I have been with many people who have died, and it sort of smells like that beef broth. I wanted to be sure it was coming from this side of the room than the side of the patient." (She really was a sweet lady and I learned a lot from her. She was nervous about her friend dying and I was someone who wanted to listen). I was d/c before the patient died, but she was VERY close to death. My question is, what is this "last turn" that the OP was referring to? I've heard of a BM being a sign, and impending doom, but didn't know about the "last turn". What is it? TIA!! ?

[Babyheart, BSN]

Wow this was interesting. I have had the same experiences. My first time was in the ER doing my EMT training stint and we had a lady come in that had coded in the ambulance on the way in. Took me days to get the smell out of my nose.

It is nice to know that not everybody smells it, and it may be my finely tuned senses! Might help with my 1st semester of nursing clinicals.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

After years in geriatric nursing, I can often smell death days before it happens. My olfactory system usually interprets it as a sickish, sweetish, sort of meaty odor---sort of like hamburger that's just about to go bad, only more subtle than that. Of course, I've never mentioned the aroma to a patient or his/her family......nobody wants to discuss such a thing. But I wonder sometimes if we nurses and aides are the only ones who smell it?

[SaraO'Hara]

I know exactly what you mean... it's like Dr Pepper, only rotten.

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

The "last turn" I was referring to is a belief held by some that, if a patient is circling the drain, ANY little thing will cause them to go. In places I have worked, we usually have a rash of deaths soon after the patient was "turned" or repositioned.

That was what I meant.

[moonchild20002000]

I have always noticed the smell of death.I would describe it as very similar to what others smell.

I think the smell lingers on me,I have to shower,wash my hair and wash my clothes.

My brother died at home....I could smell it even a while after he died .I did a lot of scrubbing.None of

my family was ever able to smell it......except the dog.

[Scrubby]

Interesting. I don't have a particularly strong sense of smell but I work with a nurse who says that she smells a very sweet smell on a dying patient as well.

I've often seen this look in the eyes of people and some animals that they are dying. It's like they are no longer here...a particular shine or something.

[mc3, ASN, RN]

Yes, noticed that odor also - to me it was a sharp, almost alcohol-type odor. I figured it was ketones...some of the nurses and CNA's could smell it, and some couldn't. I did not smell it with every patient, though. When I did, inevitably the patient did die shortly thereafter. It definitely was a sign to me.

mc3:nurse: