How do you get the smell of the dead off of you?

Question

My sister is a police officer and was in a house yesterday with an old man that died in the tub and was there for about a week. She says she still smells it today. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Have your sister call the county coroner, this isn't a new situation for those who deal with it all the time. The coroner will have lots of tips for laundry and bathing etc to help neutralize the smell. I wouldn't even be surprised if there were really special products for professional use. "Corpse-A-Way"....hahah!

Also, it may not be an actual smell...it may be a memory kind of stuck in her head??? If this is something new for her it was probably kind of traumatic. My brother is a police officer too...he was a state trooper, now a narcotics officer. The things that some folks see in the line of duty, I don't even know how they handle it. My brother had one hell of a time after the first wreck with a fatality that he responded to.

So anyway, it's no big deal for a police officer to need someone to talk to once in a while, to get these kinds of things out of their head. If your sis is afraid it will be too "girly" to talk to her boss about it, maybe she can talk to a chaplain or minister or something.

I guess one way to tell is if anyone ELSE can smell the odor when she says she can smell it.

Answer 2

I saw on TV once that the smell of decomp can stick to a woman's hair if she was wearing hairspray. a good shampoo and heavy conditioners should take care of that. But it might be a mental thing. She should ask someone else to if they smell it before she drives herself crazy with it. I'm an EMT and if work a call where there is blood from an injury or throw up (I haven't had to deal with decomposition so far) for days after I constantly wash my hands and I won't touch my uniform wth bare hands when I wash it even though I can't find a speck. It just gets stuck in your head....

Answer 3

You need to shower with lemon juice.