Warning! This is a gross one...

Well I'm just going to jump right into this one. 

Until last night, all the calls that I've had involving corpses have ranged from the patient being dead for a couple seconds to a couple hours. So, you can imagine my surprise when we came across a corpse that has been rotting for a couple weeks. 

We were called to this case by the roommates of the patient, a couple who had reported a strong smell coming from the seemingly vacant room of their 80 year old house mate. We were preparing for the worst- and man did we get the worst. 

Let me start with the smell. It's one of those distinct scents that once you have the pleasure of experiencing, it will linger in the deepest, darkest corners of your memory for the rest of your life. We could literally smell the body before we even entered the building. The couple living in the apartment with the dead woman had just had a baby, so there was an immediate concern for the quality of the air the baby has been breathing for the past couple weeks. The smell itself was so dense that it hung in the air and clung to our clothes until the end of the shift. 

The room the woman resided in was dark, cluttered, and completely unventilated. Breathing through masks, we entered with flashlights at the ready and hesitation in our step, no longer knowing what to expect. 

(Warning, this is about to get kind of gross so read at your own risk)

Upon first look, the most noticeable thing about the body was that her skin was completely blackened, as though it had been charred by a fire that didn't quite burn long enough to finish the job. The skin looked thick and rubbery, but at the same time as if it would crack immediately upon touch. Her arms were folded stiffly across her chest, her entire body laying rigid on the couch in a state of rigor mortis. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes were gaping black to the point where I couldn't tell if they had already been eaten away or if her lids were just closed. Hundreds of wiggling maggots infested every little crevice of her face and worked their way through the rest of her decaying body. It was literally something out of a horror movie but man, was it freaking epic. 

Between the two ambulance teams and the cops on scene, I was the only one "brave enough" (more like stupid enough) to fully enter the room in order to open the window and allow for some air flow. I scooted slowly between the body on the couch and the rest of the clutter in the room so as not to touch anything. I got real up close and personal with the poor lady and held my breath the entire time, but I got major street cred for stepping up to do the deed so it was worth it. Funnily enough, in that moment the thing that grossed me out most wasn't the decaying elderly but rather the rotten watermelon sitting on the coffee table beside her. 

Because of all the horror movies and cop shows I've seen, I guess one would say that I've become desensitized to the sight of such progressing decay. I had gotten so anxious to go into that room that the beam of my flashlight was unsteady due to the shaking of my hand, however once I saw the body it took me a mere second to process what I was looking at and decide that it was fine. I guess I should be grateful that I didn't react negatively to something like this because like I've said before, I don't plan to spend my future petting puppies and picking roses.