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?

[ebear, BSN, RN]

I haven't noticed a smell but I CAN see impending death in the eyes. It's sort of a "far away", blank, "other worldly" look. :uhoh21:

[nanhenn]

I came to this site after google searching this specific topic. I am an RN who recently was at my father's side all night when he passed away at 6 AM. An hour or two before he died, I noticed a definite sweet smell, almost like flowers- similar to stock, but possibly ones left in the vase a bit long (that underlying decay smell). The smell did not last long. I don't think there was any product being uised that could account for it- the second night in a row I had been lying in lounge chair quite close, plus days on end in same room and had not noticed the odor until then. I had never heard of this before- I do ambulatory, public health nurse stuff not in-patient. Also the night before he passed (about 24 hours before) I had a psychic dream of a Mean Doctor insisting he had to "pull the plug" right then. I was begging him to wait an hour until my brother and sister could get there, then negotiating for even 15 minutes more so my sister, who was staying in nearby hotel, could get there The Mean Doctor insisted no, it had to be NOW. As it happened, the next AM my father passed without any off the warning signs the hospice nurse had instructed us to look for, so that my brother and sister were not able to get there in time. They would have been there on their usual "day shift" sitting with him after I had done my "night shift" in just about an hour. Weird how that came true. As to "the last turn"- the hospice nurses had been in to see him about an hour before and also did not observe the change in breathing etc we'd been looking for. I am wondering now if they did turn him, or move him ( I was 90% asleep, just remember them coming in and washing hands)

[Bill Levinson]

Maybe this is what Oscar the Cat smells.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

BlessedMomRN said:

There was a cat in a nursing home that always snuggled up with patients that ended up dying within a week. The staff starting notifiying family based upon the cat's behavior that their loved ones were near the end of life.

The theory was there was an odor he sensed that the people were admitting before they died. It could be you have an acute sense of smell that is picking up that odor. (No, I'm not calling you a cat!)

You are referring to a wonderful book called "Making Rounds with Oscar," by David Dosa, a physician in a SNF with a big dementia population. The book is about dementia and how he learned to help people live with it by working with the nursing staff. It's a wonderful work that gives such insight and support for people working with or living with people with dementia. I learned a lot about that from this book.

However, the book also features Oscar, the resident cat, who had an big role in helping David learn to care for and love his patients, and who had an unerring sense of who was about to die. We who have cats know that for them "it's all about the smells," and it wouldn't surprise me if the early whiff of ketoacidosis or some other early biomarker of impending cellular collapse was something they could pick up.

David Dosa Making Rounds with Oscar

[Quit Floating Me, BSN, RN]

Yes.

At one hospital I worked out we would get Hospice beds... I've had quite a few patients pass during the night and I could usually tell they would go soon because of the smell. No matter how much you cleaned them they would still have that smell. I recall a sickly-sweet-pungent smell.

[Worrieddaughter]

I sought advise and found this post. I am worried about my mom. She seems to have this smell. At first, I thought it was the smell of a silent fart, but it is not. It is that sickly sweet smell that fills the house even though I have air wick air fresheners strategically placed through out the house. I was concern because my father in law had the same smell before he died. From what I read and from what I smell, it sounds like the same smell. I am worried... very worried.

[globat]

I had the same experience when my father was put on hospice the beginning of June of 2012 because of kidney failure and died Aug. 15th of 2012. I noticed a weird smell about in July and couldn't figure it out because he was bathed every day. It seemed like the smell got stronger and stronger by the week. I described the smell to other family members and none of them smelled anything. The smell was becoming to get overwhelming. One day I went on the internet and plugged in, "real sweet smell along with a chemical odor" and the smell of death came up. I used to hear old folks talking about the smell of death years ago but had no idea that smell was the "smell of death." The smell got so bad that I couldn't eat. Like a week before his death, I always sat with him but had to start sitting with my back to him. He didn't know what was going on. We would have good long conversations but I just couldn't sit with my chair facing him. At that time, I was very sick from my illness, which got worse because I helped out with him and couldn't eat that much and was also forgetting to take my medication. I felt really bad that I had to sit that way but like I said, my dad didn't really know why I was sitting that way, he was a person that never really noticed things. But I'm glad I was about to sit with him and tell him how much I loved him and he would tell me how much he loved me. That was something my father never ever did was show emotion and tell his family that he loved them, but we knew he loved us very much, but he wasn't and emotional person. Now I'm wondering if I will always smell that with other slowly dying people that I'm around. It's really weird that everyone can't smell it.

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

I'm a Hospice Nurse, and yes, sometimes there is a death smell. That's one reason, when I do post mortem care, I look for perfume, Cologne, even baby powder. I sprinkle some on the patient, some on the bed linens-not enough to be overpowering, just so the family has a better sensory memory when they say their final goodbye.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I know cancer has a distinctive odor oftentimes, that I detect. And there must be something to it, because dogs can be trained to "sniff out cancer".

I don't see much dying where I am cause I am not in the hospital setting, but I can smell certain infections and some weird foul odor that goes with certain cancers.

I have often thought I was crazy, but not anymore. My sense of smell is so keen it drives me crazy sometimes. I smell things my colleagues do not, and often.

[LeslieAlexander]

i have noticed this as well and googled "smell of death" because i smelled it last night at work. i've smelled it before, even with animals. i was curious if anyone else has. I am sure when i go to work next my patient will be dead. smelling that smell last night helped me care for him better. i hope he goes in peace.

[Alisonbrown1]

Hi. I'm not a nurse but I was looking this up (I'm a writer, I needed to know something like this for a story), but your story intrigued me. You don't have to take my word for granted, and I don't know where your beliefs lie, but it sounds like you're gifted. You can sense when people are going to die. Yes, you can smell it which is interesting in and of itself, but when someone is near death you can feel it, can't you? Like you just know, right? Like a sort of.. almost empty feeling and you just know, right?

I could be wrong and you could just be someone who can smell death while other people can't but this sounds similar to something me and my mom both have. We don't smell it, but she can see when someone is going to get hurt or die. I can sense it (ex, When I was nine, I knew someone in my important in my family was going to die for a while and it was a really sick, awful feeling I'll never forget. A week later my 14 year old cousin committed. When I was 13 my mom picked me up from my dad's house to take me and my brother back to hers and I told her she was going to the hospital. Three days later he was hospitalized for major kidney stones). You don't have to believe me and I'll understand if you don't or if you think it's weird, but it's just what I think. It sounds like you're gifted. You can sense when people are going to die through not sight or feeling, but through smell.

If you don't believe me that's fine, I just ask you don't reply with anything rude or uncalled for to say (not that I think you would, its just that some people are like that so that's all I'm asking, sorry).

I don't know, it was just a thought. I figured I'd drop it in here.

[Trauma_drama14, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN, NP]

Oh no, death definitely has an odor and you're definitely not a freak.

You know, that's funny you mention it. I just got off orientation on SICU and have that smell hit me twice. But, honestly it doesn't smell sweet to me. When I was doing post-mortem care, I noticed the death smell kinda was like that brand new plastic smell of the body bag but like really musky... Maybe that but also the smell of dying tissue??

The first time, it was my first death in the hospital and it was a DNRCC. Oddly, I expected to smell death hours before the patient started to deteriorate, but the odor hit me slowly around three hours maybe before he passed. Obviously it got stronger after he passed and lasted about an hour after he was transferred to the morgue.

This past week, my former preceptor received a transfer from the trauma unit that literally coded for 15 minutes and had just got back. Let me tell you, upon walking into his room, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew instantly it was the smell of death and knew he wouldn't make it (plus he just looked like he was going to pass at anytime). I mean honestly, it was so overwhelming that I had to internally calm myself down because my strong stomach wanted to puke. I was telling the nurse that he had the smell of death all over him and she nodded, she knew. I actually pinpointed what the smell was similar to when we were doing post-mortem care. Yeah, after we took him to the morgue I had to keep away from the room cause it kinda freaked me out just a smidgin.