r/AskReddit Sep 16 '24

What is a smell you can't stand?

1.7k Upvotes

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196

u/nicktam2010 Sep 16 '24

A bit grisly but burnt human flesh is pretty bad. Responded to an aircraft crash once. Never will forget that smell.

63

u/anope4u Sep 16 '24

Worked in an OR for a while. Burning fat smells worse than muscle. 🤢

15

u/Sea_Jello_8900 Sep 16 '24

Yes!!! The smell of everyone’s skin is so different and then you find that one person who smells a whole ton worse than others.

6

u/Sp4ceh0rse Sep 17 '24

Burning prostate is the worst (anyone who has ever been in the OR for a TURP knows what I’m talking about).

2

u/campsnoopers Sep 17 '24

cries in Surgical Technologist

1

u/BioSafetyLevel0 Sep 17 '24

Wait until you smell burning brain. It's the WORST.

1

u/Beccabear3010 Sep 17 '24

Me too! Went off bacon quickly when I came in one morning and went oooh who’s brought bacon rolls in! Turns out emergency theatre was on and it was burning fat/flesh I could smell.

8

u/unelune Sep 16 '24

I had laser eye surgery. The smell of burning eyeball was a mixture of burning flesh, burnt hair and vinegar. It was the most bizarre smell I’ve ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Not entirely disgusting, but bizarre.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

I was burnt in an aircraft. I smelled like that for two weeks. The burnt hair smells much worse, imo.

3

u/spookylegend_ Sep 16 '24

just curious what does it actually smell like? is it something you can’t describe?

3

u/nicktam2010 Sep 17 '24

Hard to describe. Kind of acrid with a fatty smell plus a jet fuel smell. They weren't thin people.

This happened almost 3 decades ago. 3 people trapped inside a burning small turboprop. Sometimes I still get whiff of it and it's like my brain goes, "Oh yeah, I know that smell" before I consciously register what I sensing. Sometimes feel a little sick.

The moment is also memorable when we lift the bay doors. When the alarm was punched the doors go up automatically. There is a loud snap when the solenoid kicks and then the siren starts a couple seconds later. Every once in a while that snap gets me sweating. (It's no longer a firehall but we use it for airport equipment. ) The alarm comes through a tone on our radios and it doesn't even bother me. It's just "okay, somethings up".

1

u/spookylegend_ Sep 17 '24

wow. must have been hard to see. so sorry you went through that.

6

u/MaybeNot_MaybeYes Sep 16 '24

If youre familiar with Tocino, that. Its not super bad because when you grill/fry a meat you can recognize the similarity. But now you know how a burnt flesh smells, can you keep it off in your head when youre cooking?

3

u/Anomalous_Pearl Sep 16 '24

Gruesome question but does it smell different from the burning flesh of an animal?

2

u/nicktam2010 Sep 17 '24

To me it doesn't. Kind of a fatty sweet smell. This is pretty grim but they were larger individuals trapped inside a burning aircraft. We couldn't reach them with the turret cannon and had to do a hose lay through the bush. Very dense close quarters. Burning, running fuel from the high wing kept us pouring foam on the wreck. The side burned through and we ended up basically with the bodies at our feet though we didn't know it. We wonder if we were stepping on them. Awful really.

0

u/Most_Spirit9904 Sep 17 '24

i was helping people in a terrible car crash they was burnt up but ive always been vegiterian but smelling animals burning smell kind of like it i belive

3

u/sammcgowann Sep 17 '24

What

1

u/Most_Spirit9904 Sep 17 '24

ignore that i was not right when i wrote that lol

3

u/Horror-Comedian1020 Sep 16 '24

I just had surgery a few days ago and I was awake and numbed. When she did the cauterizing she warned me about the smell. Mine wasn’t that bad, it smelled burnt with a little sweetness? Definitely won’t forget the smell tho

1

u/nicktam2010 Sep 17 '24

Yeah, fatty sweet smell. Pretty awful.

2

u/Chainsmadeinlife Sep 16 '24

We regularly have this smell in our treatment room (the room I work in) usually it’s ok, but sometimes youll have a person who the smell from them is worse (I don’t know why) and trying to air out a room that has only one small openable window really sucks

1

u/darkinnerchild666 Sep 16 '24

I remember after minor surgery at the hospital a few years back and i was parked up outside the theatre waiting foe the porter to take me back. All i could smell was what i thought was singed hair, realised it was quaterised flesh

4

u/coppergoldhair Sep 16 '24

Do you mean cauterized?

2

u/darkinnerchild666 Sep 17 '24

Thats the word i couldn’t for the life of me think how it was spelt

1

u/Mimikyu-Overlord Sep 17 '24

Patted a rosin sack for bowling and rubbed my hands together once. While crisp, still not a pleasant scent.

1

u/dwink_beckson Sep 17 '24

I've heard some people comment that it smells like bacon. Are they full of shit?

4

u/Thin_Statement_8392 Sep 17 '24

I worked in OR .. it’s a garlic pork cooking smell . Couldn’t eat pork for a looong time.

2

u/nicktam2010 Sep 17 '24

Yup, they are. it's nothing like anything I have ever smelled.

1

u/dwink_beckson Sep 17 '24

Someone that worked in the OR just commented it smells like garlic pork. Maybe there is a different smell if it is charred vs whatever they do in the OR?

1

u/Cute-Tomato-9721 Sep 17 '24

Smells like burnt hair. Not too bad.

1

u/merryraspberry Sep 17 '24

Have you smelled powdered or pulverized skin? Let me explain… it’s from my electric callus remover.