The smell hasn’t ever affected my life. It was noticeable, but not really scarring. I always avoided looking at the burned bodies, because it wasn’t my job to pull them out. The visual was pretty bad.

I think my first (and worst) was when we had to wait about six hours for the medical examiners to come and get the body. The scent permeated everything, to the point where the much more experienced fella I was working with advised to take off my clothes in my garage/outside the house and rinse them there, and only later bring them directly to the washing machine and add boiling water to the tub as it filled so the water would be even hotter than just from the water heater.

After we had been there for six hours, we went to eat (it was night shift and about midnight, so we hadn’t eaten anything for probably 18+ hours) at a burger joint. I get my sandwich, tilt my head down to take a bite, and that compressed my uniform shirt. Well… that air inside the shirt was completely from the dead person air, and I got a face full of it. Had to blow the air away for a second before I could take that bite again. I do remember the sandwich being delicious.

I don’t think any of my family knows when I find/see/examine dead bodies. They don’t need to hear about it, and I eat when I’m hungry; no meal changes required. I probably wouldn’t sneak a piece of raw sausage as it’s ground after seeing brain matter, but I don’t usually eat raw meat anyway.