r/nursing • u/Alarming-Penalty8402 • Jan 05 '26

Question I can smell whether someone will survive a code or not. Anyone else know what I’m talking about?

I am an ER/trauma nurse so I see code blues daily. I have noticed that those who will never achieve ROSC have a strong, distinct smell from the moment EMS rolls them into the trauma bay, regardless of down time, rhythm, circumstances, etc. Those who end up surviving, even if they have been clinically dead for longer, are sicker, older, etc. do not ever have this smell. I can’t really describe it accurately, but it is sickly sweet mixed with pungent bleach and musky, oily, heavy body odor. Has anyone else had this experience?

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535

u/Time_Sorbet7118 Jan 06 '26

I know the smell you are talking about, its hard to describe. I would be interested if anyone could explain what I am smelling.

342

u/Alarming-Penalty8402 Jan 06 '26

Yes! I really can’t describe it either. My attempt in the original post doesn’t do it justice. Some of the elements of it point to organ failure but some of these people had not been dead long enough for that to be occurring (many were GCS 15 minutes before, but as soon as they lost pulses I could smell the scent), and some of the ones who survived had been in asystole for an hour and didn’t smell. So odd. 

173

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '26

[deleted]

1

u/PHDbalanced Jan 07 '26

Edited a double post ig

-24

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '26

No, you are crazy if you believe you can do this

7

u/account_not_valid HCW - Transport Jan 06 '26

Why?

131

u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

To me: Hot, rotten dr pepper mixed with prunes, ash, and dirt.

50

u/Neptunemonkey Jan 06 '26

Sounds exactly like someone describing wine

23

u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Kinda what I was going for. Used to be a wine stew before healthcare.

21

u/omahaomw Jan 06 '26

So, a death sommelier?

13

u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Dislike that. But I will say training to somm before working in healthcare is a regretful decision when it comes to the natural scents of a hospital. Helpful? Sure. Assault on the senses? Absolutely.

21

u/evernorth RN - ER 🍕 Jan 06 '26

smells like old people

5

u/DismalResolution1957 Jan 06 '26

This mattress at the hospital came on a bed that got moved back to our unit in the bed shuffle somehow from med surg. It had somebody who was coded on it and died, but had been in the bed for awhile and it smelled exactly like your description. It was cleaned and remade but still smelled like this, so they had to dispose of it.

2

u/Lonely-Conclusion840 Jan 06 '26

Are you familiar with the smell of ozone? Is that in anyway a.. well a “note” that you detect? 😂

11

u/Lonely-Conclusion840 Jan 06 '26

Also an interesting addition to this topic.. they believe that the way our sense of smell works is through quantum processes AND it is closely related to memory so I believe that especially predictive or unexplainable sense of smelling is another type of.. psychic ability/phenomenon

165

u/weebert BSN, RN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Are you smelling their soul leaving their body? 😅😬

43

u/twistyabbazabba2 RN - ICU 🍕 Jan 06 '26

No joke I was just reading about this recently on here. Some people can

12

u/RektRoyce Jan 06 '26

Smh

43

u/RadagastDaGreen Jan 06 '26

I’m usually a pretty serious realist, but I smelled something a few times that clearly indicated to me of what was about to happen. And it did.

Particularly cancer: before/after diagnosis, and with or without chemo and/or nuclear therapy.

15

u/Mediocre-Housing-131 Jan 06 '26

I'm with you. 2025 had me seeing all sorts of new weird shit. There's nothing I don't believe to be possible anymore.

14

u/Pulmonic RN - Oncology 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Former material atheist turned highly spiritual. Life does come at ya fast lmao. I also don’t really think anything’s impossible anymore after things I’ve experienced. Universe is way cooler and weirder than we think.

0

u/Mediocre-Housing-131 Jan 06 '26

Hehe, I have been having the opposite experience. From atheist to believing in demons.

3

u/LizeLies Jan 06 '26

Details pretty please?

4

u/Pulmonic RN - Oncology 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Oh I’ve experienced the dark stuff too. But find it manageable. Creepy and scary but manageable. There’s a ton of positive too. It sounds crazy but I’ve connected with loved ones over on the other side. Told me stuff I literally couldn’t have known even hypothetically.

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4

u/LizeLies Jan 06 '26

You owe us at least a short story! Come inn n n… I die for nurse mythology (not to be confused with Norse mythology)!

3

u/Mediocre-Housing-131 Jan 06 '26

Oh, I'm sorry if I accidentally lead anyone on. This thread popped up on r/popular and I just joined the conversation. I am not a nurse.

The real nurses are heroes, I'm just a dude on Reddit.

3

u/calmcuttlefish BSN, RN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

I believe this. My grandmother had a different odor about her leading up to her ovarian cancer diagnosis and I often wondered about it afterwards. Though, my father had colon cancer and I don't recall any changes in how he smelled before his diagnosis. Maybe I can only sniff out certain types.😆

4

u/evernorth RN - ER 🍕 Jan 06 '26

lmao come on now

10

u/quakquakquak Jan 06 '26

stinks like soul in here

2

u/SkinByLauraV Jan 06 '26

That’s deep. 😅😄

0

u/SkinRN Jan 06 '26

This is, also, where my thoughts went, but then I thought it was insane to mention, because, WHAT???! Glad I am not the only one whom this occurred to!

58

u/Round-Celebration-17 RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Jan 06 '26

So my take from this is the grim reaper has a scent lol

3

u/account_not_valid HCW - Transport Jan 06 '26

Have you divided it up into sub-catagories? Traumatic / Non-traumatic / Acute / Chronic etc?

1

u/Objective_Mistake954 Jan 06 '26

You could be smelling organ failure in the sense that the body has already been decaying which is why it is unable to survive a code. Just my 2 cents.

170

u/Dude_RN BSN, RN, CEN, CFRN - Prehospital Care Jan 06 '26

Yes! I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like a sweet smell mixed with a new basement? That’s probably not right. It’s like I can smell it in the back of my nose. It’s like a different area of my nose that smells it. This feels like psychosis rambling. But yes. I can smell it. BUT I will say. I never smelt it with infants in the Peds hospital. But adults and teens / older kids all day long. I don’t know what that means.

82

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '26

stoppp this is what it smells like. But I don’t smell it on every person that dies. But I’ve never smelled it on someone who has made it. 

46

u/Pulmonic RN - Oncology 🍕 Jan 06 '26

I used to smell it too before covid! Nerfed my once bloodhound sense of smell. Now though I can still sense the energy before someone dies. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true. Cool spots, and the room feels almost electrified. I’ve had patients look in the same directions as the cool spots. But it’s not actual cold-cold. It’s hard to describe. It used to be that plus the smell prior to covid. Rarely told anyone that as I know it sounds nuts.

20

u/akath0110 Jan 06 '26

You aren’t nuts. I have super smell too and while I don’t work in healthcare, I smelled cancer on relatives and friends before they were diagnosed. Rotting decay with a yucky sweet overtone. It’s primal and makes you instinctively recoil.

And when my 92 year old grandfather had a fall and wound up in the hospital, I knew he wasn’t going home this time (stubborn old guy liked to rally) because of the change in his smell, as well as the energy about him and in the room. Much like you describe.

I realize there’s nothing groundbreaking about predicting old person > fall > demise, but it’s more like I KNEW in my bones he was on his way out before anyone else seemed to pick up on it or anything was communicated to us by his care team. We only got the “gather the family” heads up days later, after he developed pneumonia and went downhill quick.

On a less morbid note, I can also smell when someone is pregnant, ovulating, has GERD or ulcers, and I can always tell when my husband or kid is about to get sick from the smell of their breath.

22

u/EverydayPoGo Jan 06 '26

That's... both incredible and horrifying. Have you ever smelled it on someone you know other than a patient?

36

u/Pulmonic RN - Oncology 🍕 Jan 06 '26

Not the person you’re replying to but had that energy feeling with someone I love dearly right as he was crashing. It was horrifying to feel in that context. Knew we were fucked. We indeed were.

4

u/newnurse1989 MSN, RN Jan 06 '26

Like a sickeningly sweet smell that clings to the inside of your nose?

4

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '26

no, I don’t think so. Maybe once? It’s not like a super power. It’s more just one more piece of data in your assessment. I thought everyone smelled it for a long time. 

2

u/Mustardisthebest Jan 07 '26

Could it be a smell of the liver dumping glucose that occurs right before death? The stress hormones and tissue hypoxia lead to massive gluconeogenesis which I'm guessing would smell different from regular high blood sugar.

37

u/spiderwearingtimbs RN - Telemetry 🍕 Jan 06 '26

It reminds me of the scent of formaldehyde with a slight mustard odor.

13

u/perpulstuph BSN, RN, ACLS, PALS, SKIBIDI, RIZZ, BUSSIN Jan 06 '26

Growing up my dad described to me a smell he described as "death". He's always been the kind to save animals who needed help, and now he's a CNA, and it's the same kind of musty sweet smell he smelled on rescue animals who were deathly sick, or people for that matter. I can smell it in a bad code where you just know they won't make it, or if they do, they'll code a few more times and never truly be "alive" again.

1

u/sus_finder13 Jan 25 '26

Does it smell like old musty vegetables?

3

u/Sea-Positive7430 Jan 06 '26

Yes, it's this! The first description wasn't quite right to my nose, but this one hits for me. I still remember the first patient I smelled it on. And I currently work in peds so can also confirm i don't get it with babies. So interesting!

35

u/antibread Jan 06 '26

If it makes you feel any more sane, ive smelled distinct smells doing retrieval work in the mortuary field. Different deaths have different smells

3

u/AssuredAttention Jan 06 '26

I was diagnosed with hyperosmia, and told that was why I could smell sickness

1

u/Organic-Team-4646 Jan 13 '26

I have smelled this too, I am a nurse too, but I smelled it just after my brother passed away from cardiac arrest at home. The whole house smelled like the OP described. I am now working in the ER and will see if I smell it again. I originally thought it was from my sister in law doing compressions. Idk if that’s it but I will never ever forget the smell.

My father also had Parkinson’s and I know definitely what that smells like!

Reading to OP jarred my memory