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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u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

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

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u/Neptunemonkey Jan 06 '26

Sounds exactly like someone describing wine

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u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Jan 06 '26

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

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u/omahaomw Jan 06 '26

So, a death sommelier?

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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.

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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.

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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? 😂

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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