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?
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.