The Medical Mystery of February 19, 1994

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The Year 1994, there was a case that was strange and if you were at the place, you will be sincere that the medical case looked mysterious. So today, I will be discussing a case that happened on February 19, 1994, so join me as I unravel the entire event in one post.

This is the case of 31 year old Gloria Ramirez who is a mother of two and was at the late stage of cancer, who was driven into the ICU with an ambulance to Riverside General hospital. ON getting to the hospital, paramedics fought to save her life which is what they do as part of their love for human and their oath to the job.

While she was still her awake, her blood pressure was increasing and she was becoming incoherent. While paramedics were trying to save her, they noticed a fruit garlicky smell believed to be coming from her mouth but they didn't see it as a concern. They were interested in saving her life as they wanted to rectify the low blood pressure problem caused by her heart beating very fast. To do this, the heart needs to reset and a defibrillator is to be used.

When Dr Julie Gorchynski tried to use the defibrillator, she noticed a oily sticky sheen on the patient's skin and called for concern. Soon a nurse named Susan Kane came to perform a routine blood test only to get hit with the smell of ammonia from Gloria's body when the skin was punctured. She was able to extract the patient's blood and handed the syringe with the blood to Dr Julie Gorchynski and to the surprise of the doctor, she spotted crystal-like particles floating in the blood.

After that observation, Nurse Kane fainted, the doctor also started to feel lightheaded, and fainted, as well as every other medical staff started to fall ill and faint. It was Dr. Humberto Ochoa who called for the evacuation of the ER and asked for only a few medical practitioners to remain in the room for the patient's life to be saved. The hospital declared an emergency asking ambulances to take patients to other hospitals, and sealing the hospital completely.

The patient wasn't left alone as oxygen was given to her, and her heart was helped with defibrillator and the hospital awaited the hazardous materials team. The hazmat team arrived at the hospital at 11:00pm and were after a smoking gun as they were looking for any gas that could have cased the event in the emergency room. The team did so because it wasn't the first time the hospital was having to deal with hazardous materials.

They had a case in 1991 where a sterilizer released harmful gas, in 1992 the hospital had a hazardous algae growing in their reservoir, in 1993, the entire ER was filled with sewer gas from a drain, and in the year that Gloria was admitted to the hospital, a cancer patient's room was filled with noxious fume that he had to flee from the room, so you would not blame the Hazmat team for looking at any trace of hazardous compound in the ER.

The Hazmat team didn't find anything, but it was still a mystery as 23 member of staff had fallen ill from a gas that got into the ER but then the patient who they could have suspected died. Gloria body to placed in two air tight bags, and then put inside an aluminum casket before moved to the mortuary for autopsy to done on the patient.

The autopsy didn't take place for 6 days possibly because of the fear to come in contact with what got the people in the hospital sick. The autopsy was finally carried out but it was done as though they were treating a case of Ebola and Covid-19 combined. Although the autopsy didn't give any clue with regards to what happened at the ER but then it showed that the patient died of Cardiac dysrhythmia caused by kidney failure and they also found high level of Acetone with noting toxic in the body of the patient.

A second autopsy was performed to ascertain what the first autopsy showed, and this time around, an anti-nausea medication known as Trimethobenzamide hydrocloride (TIGAN) that could be broken down to ammonia was found in the cadaver but the medication was not in high level and it could not knock anyone out.

The remains of the body wasn't released to the family with believes that she might be a biological hazard but after months, the body was released and when the family tried to do a final autopsy, they were unable to find anything because the body had decayed too much. So they had to bury their dead although they were angry.

Soon, different theories began to surface with one very annoying one from the Coroner's office that said it was the smell of death from the patient's body that caused the workers to faint but in reality, the patient was still alive when workers in the hospital fainted, and who believed MIASMA theorem in 1994? Other offices like California department of health care services and OSHA said it was as a result of Mass Hysteria where nurse cane smell of Ammonia from the syringe led to other members of staff fainting as well in a placebo effect. While this sounds convincing, Mass hysteria should put members who were affected in hospital bed for about 2 weeks and some in wheelchairs after. People who were affected negatively by the event like Dr Julie Gorchynski sued the offices and the hospital.

I do not want to bring up any theory but you see, the sticky oily sheen on the patient and the fruit garlicky smell are both traits of Di-methyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and like I said, those weren't my words, they were from Lawrence Livermore National laboratory. Paper from the Lawrence Livermore National laboratory later showed that elevated level of the molecules Di-methyl sophone (DMSO2) was found during her autopsy and this molecule in room temperature it appears in crystal form.

Di-methyl sophone (DMSO2) end product is Di-methyl sophate (DMSO4) and the lab proposed that the oxygen and other measures taken by the hospital caused the molecule to become (DMSO4) which is also a chemical weapon used in World War 1 which can cause damage to kidneys, lungs, heart, necrosis of the eyes, coma, and death amongst other things. But then the laboratory said that they only had anecdotal evidence so we cannot really say or know what actually happened at this hospital, or what lead to the liver failure or death of this patient since it was not her cervical cancer.



READ MORE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/04/30/case-of-toxic-woman-closed-with-mystery-still-unsolved/470acaeb-74d2-42d7-82df-5b56fa2b5fc5/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/analysis-of-a-toxic-death
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/toxic-lady-blood-poisonous-cleared-30969649
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-history/dmso-not-cure-all-fdas-panic-over-it-birthed-myth
https://www.jstor.org/stable/800788
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/dimethyl-sulfone-dmso2-msm-344621
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/dimethyl-sulfate.pdf
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Dimethyl-Sulfate
https://www.kansashealthsystem.com/-/media/Files/PDF/Poisons/Dimethyl20sulfate.pdf
https://www.mmsl.cz/pdfs/mms/2015/03/04.pdf
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/05/15/Report-fumes-could-be-from-drug-lab/6742863668800/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/gloria-ramirez
https://www.straightdope.com/21342164/what-s-the-story-on-the-toxic-lady
https://www.ladbible.com/news/science/gloria-ramirez-toxic-blood-unsolved-908092-20230917
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379073897000765?via%3Dihub
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-18-mn-35668-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/26/us/after-airtight-autopsy-mystery-lingers-in-case-of-hospital-fumes.html
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/23008-dysrhythmia
https://original.newsbreak.com/@sara-b-1598241/2930437451935
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/1994/09/13/was-it-a-case-of-mass-hysteria-or-poisoning-by-a-toxic-chemical/40fa6b99-0334-432f-9620-61dd05d7110f/
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/05/us/hospital-fumes-that-hurt-6-are-tied-to-nerve-gas.html
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/05/15/Report-fumes-could-be-from-drug-lab/6742863668800/
https://www.acs.org/molecule-of-the-week/archive/d/dimethyl-sulfoxide.html
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-dmso#Uses

Image Reference

Image 1 || Rawpixel || Domestic Training Course for healthcare workers.
Image 2 || Rawpixel || Emergency hospital during influenza epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas (1918)
Image 3 || Wikimedia Commons || Crystals of dimethyl sulfoxide-d6



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Quite a tough life miss Gloria was faced to live in life. Sometimes life throw to us what it seems we can't handle. But one of the things that still baffle me is up till now, the medical scientist have not been able to find a cure to cancer

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Hmmm... Cancer is quite complex than we see it. These cells grow and they aren't usually similar to one another in some cases especially when they are as a result of a virus but in the near future, there will surely be a less painful cure for cancer as research are ongoing on this topic. For Gloria, all we know is what we read in the papers and she did have a tough life. Thanks for visiting my post.

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You know, when politics and truth are in the same sentence, then that sentence is either a lie or a cover up. We will not be able to tell what killed Gloria but the lab paper from Lawrence Livermore National laboratory gives a close cause of death.

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You are right and I do not think it is only politics It just play anywhere there is name to protect, money to make, and power to wield or hold on to. It is a shame that we are not going to know what really killed the patient in the post.

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