# What does death smell like?(do not need answer fast) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877 "2015-03-24T18:12:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/21 "2015-03-25T17:57:14Z")
OOOooo that smell, Can’t ya smell that smell? OOOooo that smell, the smell of death surrounds youuuuu [sub]A wise man never passes on a chance to quote Lynyrd Skynyrd. Neither do I.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/22 "2015-03-25T17:58:41Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > So is the pervasiveness due in large part to the fact that gases are escaping? Or just the fact that tissue is breaking down? Probably some of each. Both. And different kinds of death smell differently. A “floater” smells vastly different to a guy who’s been dead in a climate-controlled room for a few days, which is WAY different to someone who’s been dead in a non-air-conditioned room in Florida in summer. A person who died outside in the cold doesn’t really smell. You also have to let them thaw before beginning the autopsy; they aren’t dead until they’re \*\*\*warm \*\*\*and dead. My intended was a pathologist and an MD; he was a coroner. If he didn’t go to the coroner’s office after a call, he’d take off his clothes in the mud room and immediately wash them in a particular mix of products (he’d been doing the job for a while). Regular calls weren’t bad, but the “whoops! Just found someone!” calls were often…odiferous. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/23 "2015-03-25T18:05:47Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > They’re not _comparable_. They’re the \*same exact \*smell. The difference is between a couple grams of rotting nastiness versus a hundred-plus kilograms of rotting nastiness. > > So take your tooth-stench and multiply by 100,000. The stench gets plenty thick enough to gag almost anyone smelling it for the first few dozen exposures. Ok, I hesitated putting this out, but this tooth thing leads me further. My husband was dying for a long time, seemingly by inches. He had bed sores, his breath, his overall self had an odor, an indescribable odor. He was removed about 3 hours after he died, so could it have been putrefaction happening before he was dead? I never smelled that odor again until years later (and this is very weird), I found a large zit, a really big one, on the back of my shoulder. I simply hadn’t noticed it. When I popped it, the stuff that came out had that exact smell that he’d carried. Is that similar to above? I mean that’s the only time I smelled that exact smell, and yes, I have had dead mice etc, but this was a different odor and I always will relate it to dead. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/24 "2015-03-25T18:10:03Z")
Christ I just remembered a third world morgue on the equator with broken freezers, there were actual maggots visible. The body we were there for only spent a few hours there before going to the funeral home, no idea on the long time unclaimed but god I can’t forget that place. The smell alone was horrible. [http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Minister-surprised-at-situation-221112621.html](http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Minister-surprised-at-situation-221112621.html) God that article was years later, sounds like it was just as foul. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/25 "2015-03-25T18:25:43Z")
> [@DummyGladHands](#): > > Ok, I hesitated putting this out, but this tooth thing leads me further. > > My husband was dying for a long time, seemingly by inches. He had bed sores, his breath, his overall self had an odor, an indescribable odor. He was removed about 3 hours after he died, so could it have been putrefaction happening before he was dead? I never smelled that odor again until years later (and this is very weird), I found a large zit, a really big one, on the back of my shoulder. I simply hadn’t noticed it. When I popped it, the stuff that came out had that exact smell that he’d carried. Is that similar to above? I mean that’s the only time I smelled that exact smell, and yes, I have had dead mice etc, but this was a different odor and I always will relate it to dead. I’m sorry for your sad experience, **DummyGH** ☹ It’ll be interesting to hear the answer to this one. I know this smell too, and it is nothing like the smell of rotting teeth. Then I’ll be back to the original question writ slightly different; does death smell more like a rotten tooth or an exploded zit? puppies and kittens puppies and kittens puppies and kittens puppies and kittens ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/26 "2015-03-25T19:15:23Z")
I didn’t see this mentioned yet but a newly dead person releases their sphincters and pisses and shits themselves. It is not pretty and often not discussed, but a dead person usually is lying in their own filth if left for more than a few hours. That gets the whole death smell started. If you happen upon a dead person in a house, even a few hours old, you can usually tell. After a couple hot hours, or a few days, you have quite a mixture. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/27 "2015-03-25T19:34:45Z")
Oh dear. All this talk of escaping gases is giving me the vapors. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/28 "2015-03-25T19:42:05Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > When I worked for a street department years ago I was on road cleanup duty. There was a dead opossum in a ditch. I stabbed it with a pitchfork to pick it up. > Here Endeth The Lesson. OK, your post and username reminds me of the worst experience I’ve had with this in my life. Dead seal on the beach, with a bubbling, sputtering wound on the side. My brother decides to poke it with a stick, which causes a very large amount of gas to escape all at once. Even the seagulls were sick, I’d swear to it. But going back to the OPs question, it was basically just the smell of rotten meat. Not meat that’s just a little off, but meat that’s out and out rotten, and about 200 lbs of it. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/29 "2015-03-25T23:04:15Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > I cut the head off a week old dead sea lion once because… ? ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/30 "2015-03-25T23:53:20Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Look, go without bathing for a week, and then smell your armpits and legpits. Since that stench is caused largely by the decomposition of dead bacteria, it, too, is the stench of death. No thanks. I’m good. I’ll trust ya on this one. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/31 "2015-03-26T01:39:38Z")
This is very much like trying to describe a color that you haven’t seen. You’ll know. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/32 "2015-03-26T16:17:53Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > because… ? Not that fun of a story 🙂 I was working for a federal agency during a time a dead sea lion washed up on the beach. We contacted our sister agency who handled such things and asked what to do. They requested that we take a fat sample and look for fishing gear in the stomach contents. They also suggested that we remove the head as they are illegal to possess in the US and with the lions proximity to town it would make an attractive nuisance. Sea lion vertebrae are huge, it took an axe and a chainsaw to pop that sucker off. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/33 "2015-03-26T19:21:40Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > This is very much like trying to describe a color that you haven’t seen. > > You’ll know. Even if you have _never_ smelled it before, you know _exactly_ what it is. ETA: I like puppy breath. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/34 "2015-03-26T21:08:48Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > In a sadder case, on very hot days, you can smell the stench of death at the Fort Rosecrans Cemetary, here in San Diego. How does that work? ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877/35 "2015-03-26T21:36:04Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > They also suggested that we remove the head as they are illegal to possess in the US and with the lions proximity to town it would make an attractive nuisance. “Dead and rotting sea lion” is a definition of attractive nuisance that I haven’t heard before. When the cat lost one of its little mousey playthings under the TV cart, my living room developed a smell that was reminiscent of low tide in the salt marsh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-death-smell-like-do-not-need-answer-fast/715877.md?page=1)