[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Jasper
Date: 6/15/01
Time: 9:39:23 PM
Charlie,
The odor of blood in large quantities is not something you would recognize unless you have been exposed to it before. It's just a bad smell, but one you would definitely notice if you were close to the source. Saying something about it is another matter.
I have never been able to figure out why people who have been exposed to it rarely mention it. Even the people who were with me in Vietnam when things got really bloody and none of us could get away from the smell, never mentioned it. I have never figured out why doctors, nurses and emergency drivers and medic never mention it. My brother investigated many bloody murder scenes. He never mentioned it, either.
My best guess is because of the trauma that's associated with it once you know what it is, or the fear that people will think you're imagining it because you can't normally smell it. For some reason the smell brings back more powerful memories of the incident it's associated with than anything you might see (that's how it was with me, anyway). You virtually relive the experience. For years after I came from Vietnam I had no sense of smell whatever - no real sense of smell, that is. I often smelled blood where there wasn't any - an order so overwhelming that it turned me around as if someone had slapped me hard in the face.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help. --Jasper