How does the smell affect your life, how do you deal with it, do you have any stories.
Im a trivia nerd and sometimes facts connect in an “oh no” kind of way.
Today the fact of “smell is the strongest scent tied to memory and emotions” hit the fact “pigs are very close in alot of ways to human tissue”
That leads to the “oh no”
Its got to be difficult entering after a terrible fire and smelling food, possibly even remember you nyanas famous pulled pork.
Sorry to be gruesome but that’s what I’m asking about.
How do you put that aside? Do you get sick when Nana makes what used to be your childhood favorite?
I couldn’t deal with that, the thought alone shook me. How do firefighters deal with that? Do family members change meal plans if you had a bad situation that day? Do some firefighters become vegetarians? Is it something you kinda just get over after a couple times?
Not a firefighter, though I’m related to some and have had discussions about the morbid stuff with them.
From my end of things, I’ve been around burn victims, and close enough to a fire where someone was burned to death to have smelled what you’re asking about.
Like others have said, during a fire, the firefighters are going to be geared up, so they won’t smell it while it’s happening. The lingering smell isn’t as noticeable after because there’s just too many other smells present. That was true for me as a bystander, and my family have said the same.
But I can’t say it smells different in a way that I could sniff it on the wind and automatically know that it was a person, and not someone grilling. I might guess it was pork rather than beef, but I’d say that venison getting over cooked is closer than pork getting over cooked.
It just smells like burning meat. And it wasn’t even that strong at the fire I was present for. I would have guessed it was something in a freezer or fridge at the time.
The remains that time essentially smelled like burnt meat. Damn near all meat smells the same when burnt. Only thing I can think of that stands out is really oily fish. And even that isn’t so different it matters much because the burnt meat smell is still the dominant odor.
Raw human meat smells the same as raw animal meat usually. I’ve been wrist deep in wounds, infected or not, and I’ve processed freshly killed animals. Only time I could tell a difference between mammals is wild vs domesticated. A lot of game animals smell gamy, and domesticated rarely do, and won’t be as strong.
Imo, if you would have a problem with the smell of burnt human being so close to the smell of burnt animal, chances are that the smell of meat cooking would have already bothered you a little. It does bother some people. But I’ve never known anyone that eats meat suddenly give it up after smelling burnt human. I’ve heard of it, but never met anyone that said it.
Now, there’s a pretty damn common reaction to the immediacy of something like that. Like, don’t ask me to eat a rare steak right after I pack a wound, you dig? But a well done burger? Sure. That’s down to individual tolerances though, and mine is more that when I’m packing a wound, it’s usually in bad shape, likely infected or with necrotic tissue.
And the smell of rotting meat, human or not, will put a lot of people off their feed for a while.
So, I’d say that, overall, it’s less about the actual smell and more about how the individual copes with the knowledge that death and horror are everywhere. The more that kind of thing worries you, the more likely you are to see the connection between how much humans are just another kind of meat, and what we eat. The less it worries you, the less repulsion you’ll feel from similar foods.
It’s why, even when I’m trolling vegans, I ain’t mad at being vegan. They just have different set of associations between meat and where it comes from. Can’t be upset about that at all.
The victims I have seen directly consumed by fire, I have seen while wearing my scba and have not really smelled them. I’m not on the crews that transport after.
However, when we go to an untimely death or otherwise serious call, there are certainly smells. Nothing having kids hasn’t also sort of exposed you to, though.
Then again, cats, old feces, and other unknown substances and smells from long-passed people does stick around.
You get used to it in an odd way.
If you’re worried about how smells affect you, have you ever smelt where a person died? It smells almost exactly like a bunch of very very rotten food. But your mind freaks out about it knowing it comes from a person. I used to work on insurance jobs and have cleaned up after 3 deaths and the smell… it just fucking sticks in your mind knowing what it is. Once a car was brought into the warehouse after a suicide but i didnt know what for it just smelt like a fridge of food after not having power for a month. But as soon as i learned what it was my brain instantly made it smell worse. Honestly kinda crazy.
Yeah I grew up on a farm and smelled some pretty bad stuff but it was just a bad smell. If I knew it was human that would be harder even if it smelled mostly the same. It would be psychologically worse.
I know burying a dog that got hit by a car and took a few days to find was worse than finding a missing cow in the same state. I loved the dog, I liked the cows but that dog was my dog. It was worse smell psychologically even tho the cow is bigger and was probably logically more smelly.
Not a firefighter, but I have smelled human flesh burning. I worked pathology for a year, and right off the O.R., a few times a week, you could smell the cauterized flesh from tonsillectomies. I wasn’t in the room with the procedure, but you could always tell. For me, the smell never really reminded me of pork. It was its own thing. That being said, I can’t speak for everyone, but to me, it didn’t smell like pork.
That is a great answer thank you. That was the most horrific part of the question. I’ve never smelled it obviously but I know pirates called it long pork. I’ve heard it described as tasting like pork but only from people who probably were not cannibals. I don’t talk to a lot of cannibals… That I’m aware of anyway. So I only have what I read here and there in articles. I just assumed if humans tasted like pork then we smell like pork.
So I was talking about smells with a friend “bathrooms and air freshener if you’re curious” and my ADHD brain just linked a bunch of useless trivia.
I’m glad to know humans just smell different. It’s probably biological maybe even evolution. Makes sense because in the cave man days anyone who wasn’t disgusted by another dead human enough to run… Probably didn’t survive as long as those that thought “this is something I want to immediately get away from.”
A side note!
If this kind of question isn’t okay in this community, I do keep !morbidquestions@sh.itjust.works around as an alternative to the original reddit sub. So far, nobody here has objected to dark or ugly questions, but just in case
I don’t know how firefighters prevent the PTSD.
24 years ago I regularly passed through the disaster site in NYC, and the smells linger in my brain even now.
My grandad went to Normandy , my dad was a firefighter, and I’m glad I’m just a computer nerd. The most stressful thing I should have to do is make sense of all the broken things RedHat jammed together and sold as a product.
Personally I get more of a reaction from smelling diesel exhaust and smoke at the same time
I’ve never associated dead people smells with food though.
OP is secretly a cannibal confirmed.
That’s good to know. I told another commenter I’m glad to be wrong. I just assumed it would smell like pork because of all the ways pig is used to test things as replacement for human flesh. Being close here doesn’t mean it’s close there. I just assumed and I’m relieved that’s not something people actually have to deal with.
Still obviously a horrible and traumatic thing to deal with but at least it doesn’t ruin Nana’s famous pulled pork. Which is so small and silly compared to dealing with the horrors of a tragedy but… To use a silly example “it sucks I got fired but it would’ve been slightly worse if I got fired and hit my shin on the table while I was being escorted out of the building”. Basically I’m not implying “well then it’s not so bad” just…One small thing I’m glad isn’t part of the problem.