It is probably the last thing you want to see as you pull up to any funeral home.
Yet, a funeral home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, US, was seen to have blood leaking out from the pavement on Thursday.
Bright red blood and embalming fluid, known as formaldehyde, leaked out from a storage tank and drained onto the street.
Credit: KATC
The mixture came from the storage tank that holds excess embalming fluid behind the building, with a blockage causing the spillage for 20 minutes.
According to KATC, the blood did not make its way into the city's sewers as it happened on private property.
The funeral home, which is under new management, reportedly did not have a permit with the Department of Environmental Services.
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Adam Smith, of the City of Baton Rouge Department of Environmental Services, told the channel that they had been focusing on restaurants of late but hoped to bring the funeral home under similar guidelines soon.
"We sent out both of sewer inspectors and our environmental specialists to take a look," he said. "We determined that it wasn't a sewer issue and that it was an issue on private property."
The blood has been cleaned up from the street - an employee was filmed by the TV channel with a hosepipe washing it away.
Credit: KATC
It's probably not the best way to think of your relative's final few hours before being cremated or buried.
Something similar occurred in China when the local river was turned blood red after a leakage from a nearby slaughterhouse.
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People in the city of Jiujang, China, were left stunned when the water suddenly changed colour within the space of an hour.
Credit: CCTV13
The factory was initially unaware of the leak, and now the local environment bureau is investigating to see if there has been any damage to the ecosystem, and to discover if the whole debacle could have been avoidable.
Featured Image Credit: KATC