What is the Worst Thing You've Seen?

It's a question I hear all of the time, as soon as people find out I'm a CSI. 

I love my job, so why wouldn't I want to talk about it?! I love talking about it.

I'll often ask them to tell me about the worse thing they've seen first. It hardly ever compares. So then I think to myself, do they really want to know about the worst thing I've seen?

Most people really wouldn't want to hear about the worse thing I've seen, let alone see it. 

Most of the worst things ultimately involve death. The death of someone's son or daughter, mother or father.

Once you've seen it, you've seen it. There's no unseeing. Not only have I been there and seen it, I've smelt it, I've touched it and moved it. I've taken photographs of it, I've put it in a bag, I've undressed it, I've picked bits up from the other side of the room and pieced them together, taken it out of the boot of a car, from the bottom of a wheelie bin, from the conveyor belt of a recycling centre.

These things don't bother me. I'm not affected by them. It's not because I'm heartless or cold. It's because I don't know these people. This is my job. My career. Someone has to do this and I'm proud that it's me. 

Just because it doesn't affect me, it doesn't mean I don't do these tasks without compassion. I treat every person I deal with, with the utmost respect. Sometimes the things we do appear undignified, which is where I often find myself talking to the person who has passed, making a quick apology for the way we're doing something. 

I'm very rarely alone when I see these things, there will no doubt be at least another CSI or two with me. My colleagues see and smell the same things. We talk about it, whilst we're doing it, in the van on the way to McDonalds afterwards, in the office when we're writing the job up or weeks later when something reminds us of the job. We talk about it together because there's very few people who would want to talk about these things in the detail we do.

So, my question to you: What's the worse thing you've seen?