TWENTY three medics were left convulsing and struggling to breathe after treating a patient later dubbed “the Toxic Lady”.
She died within a matter of hours, and what happened remains one of the biggest medical mysteries in history.
Gloria Ramirez was dubbed ‘the Toxic Lady’ after medics treating her fell illWikimedia Commons
Gloria Ramirez was admitted to Riverside General Hospital in southern California, US, in February 1994.
She had terminal cervical cancer and she was having heart palpitations and difficulty breathing.
Nurses took a blood sample and immediately grew concerned when they spotted it had a strange chemical smell and contained crystal-like particles.
They also noticed there was an oily sheen all over Gloria’s body and a strange “fruity garlic” odour coming from her mouth.
But it wasn’t until one of the nurses fainted, shortly after saying that her face felt like it was burning, that panic really set in.
Several other staff then began to feel sick and lightheaded, and others reported shaking, convulsions, breathlessness and short periods when they stopped breathing altogether.
The hospital quickly declared an internal emergency and evacuated all other patients into the car park, but Gloria, 31, died a short time later.
One of the nurses who moved her body reported the same burning sensation on her skin as her colleague before vomiting.
Another ended up in intensive care with bone tissue problems and then had to use crutches for months.
In total, 23 of the 37 medics who came into contact with Gloria fell ill. Five required hospitalisation, it is understood.
But almost three decades later, why she affected them in such a way remains a mystery.
The hospital was searched for chemicals, but none were ever found.
Gloria’s body was also analysed, but the investigations were inconclusive.
Her cause of death was given as heart arrhythmia (an abnormal or irregular heartbeat) caused by late-stage cervical cancer.
And several theories have been put forward about what happened, including mass hysteria (a psychological condition that affects groups of people with a shared environment) and even alien abduction.
But generally, the two considered most plausible are that the conditions in the hospital were hazardous, or that it had something to do with the apparently “abnormal” amounts of dimethyl sulfoxide in Gloria’s body.
Her family believe the wards were to blame, pinning the phenomenon on a poisonous gas leak.
But others think Gloria was using an anti-inflammatory gel to cope with pain from her cancer and it reacted with oxygen administered by doctors to create dimethyl sulfone, which can crystallise at room temperature.
They say that electric shocks from the defibrillator used after Gloria went into cardiac arrest could have converted it into dimethyl sulfate – a highly toxic gas.
When it enters the body, it can cause delirium, convulsions and heart failure.
Writing in the journal Forensic Science International, Patrick M Grant, from the Livermore Forensic Science Center, said this is a likely theory.
“Much of the mystery surrounding the circumstances at the hospital may be explainable if this postulated metabolic pathway took place at the time of the emergency room incident,” he said.
“Although dimethyl sulfate was not detected in any analyses pertinent to this event, there are plausible scientific explanations to account for that fact.
“The descriptions of the symptoms of the hospital-staff victims appear quite consistent with dimethyl sulphate exposures.”
Whatever happened, the events went down as “the most baffling” in local history and later inspired an episode of The X-Files.