On the 19th of February, 1994, a 31-year-old woman was taken by ambulance to the Emergency
Room of the Riverside General Hospital in Riverside, California.
Her name was Gloria Ramirez, and she was suffering an acute medical emergency.
Her blood pressure was falling, her heartbeat was irregular, and she was struggling to breathe.
As treatment began, however, something strange started happening.
One by one, the staff who were treating Gloria began falling ill themselves, passing out,
vomiting and convulsing uncontrollably.
This was the beginning of one of the strangest medical mysteries in recent history.
Gloria Ramirez lived in the city of Riverside in California with her husband and two children
from a previous marriage.
She was, by all accounts, an extremely likeable and positive woman – she was later described
as “a friend to all,” who was “quick to smile” and a “carefree joker who brought
comfort and joy to others.”
Gloria’s life changed dramatically, however, when she was diagnosed with late-stage cervical
cancer at the beginning of 1994.
By the time she was diagnosed the cancer had already spread to such a degree that treatment
options were limited, and it was impacting her day-to-day health.
Her condition worsened on the 19th of February.
On the evening of this day, Gloria became short of breath and incoherent.
She seemed confused, her blood pressure was dropping rapidly, and her heartbeat had become
irregular.
An ambulance was called and she was rushed to hospital, arriving at Riverside General
at around 8:15pm.
She was injected with a mixture of drugs in an attempt to stabilise her and normalise
her heartrate.
Unfortunately, she did not appear to respond, and her condition continued to deteriorate
to the point where she required defibrillation.
Defibrillation is the use of a powerful electric shock.
When applied across the chest of a patient with an irregular heart rhythm, it can sometimes
help to reset this to a more normal rhythm.
In the case of Gloria, though, defibrillation did not appear to work.
Her condition continued to deteriorate, with doctors racing against time to work out what
was causing her symptoms.
Blood was drawn from Gloria to carry out further tests.
At this point several unusual things were noted.
One was an overpowering smell of garlic, which seemed to emanate from Gloria.
There was also a thick, greasy coating on her skin, and the blood that was drawn from
her was observed to have unusual particles floating in it, and a strong smell of ammonia.
At this point, a nurse who had just moments ago been handling Gloria’s blood sample
abruptly fainted.
A medical student who had also handled the blood sample then became nauseous, left the
room, and fainted a few minutes later.
A third nurse also passed out shortly after this.
All three were removed and given first aid, and regained consciousness, although they
complained of a range of persistent symptoms, including the sensation that their skin was
burning, muscular twitches, and being unable to move their limbs.
Back in the room with Gloria, almost everyone involved in her treatment started to experience
some unpleasant symptoms, ranging from headaches to nausea to uncontrollable twitches, shortness
of breath, and burning skin.
It was clear that something was deeply wrong, and as a precautionary measure the entire
emergency department was evacuated, with patients moved outside to the parking lot.
Gloria Ramirez remained inside the building, along with a small number of doctors who battled
through their worsening symptoms to try and save her life.
Unfortunately, they were unable to do so, and after around 40 minutes she died as a
result of kidney failure caused by her cervical cancer.
37 staff had been working in the Emergency Room that evening.
23 of them experienced symptoms, with the first few nurses who had passed out while
treating her suffering the most severe reactions.
Julie Gorchynski, the medical student who had fainted after handling Gloria's blood,
was kept in intensive care for two weeks after the incident, suffering from hepatitis and
necrosis of the bones in her knees.
Nobody knew what could have caused this range of symptoms, and so as a precaution Gloria’s
body was sealed in a metal-lined box, and staff were required to wear hazardous materials
suits when moving or otherwise attending to her.
Her body was quarantined for a week before any investigation could take place.
After this time the Californian Department of Health and Human Services launched an investigation
to try and determine what exactly had happened.
The hospital building was inspected thoroughly to rule out a gas or chemical leak, and all
the staff who had been on duty that day were interviewed about the symptoms they had experienced.
A conclusion was soon reached: there had been no toxic fumes, and the illness experienced
by the staff on duty that evening was the result of hysteria.
It was posited that the fear and anxiety caused by the mere idea that Gloria’s body was
exuding some form of poison was sufficient to cause the rash of symptoms that had cut
through the hospital’s staff.
Julie Gorchynski – who had to use a wheelchair for three months, and whose recovery took
years – strongly contested this conclusion, pointing out that her condition could not
have been caused by hysteria.
Repeated autopsies were carried out on the body of Gloria Ramirez, and she was tested
for many common substances that might have caused the spate of mass illness.
The only things found in her system were the normal painkilling drugs one might expect
to find in the body of a patient with late stage cancer.
It wasn’t until doctors at Riverside General referred the case to the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory that a breakthrough was made.
Scientists at the laboratory used a mass spectrometer to test Gloria’s blood for a much wider
range of substances, and found an extremely elevated level of a chemical known as DMSO.
DMSO (or Dimethyl sulfoxide) was a popular medicine in the 1960s, when it was widely
used in a diluted form to treat muscle soreness and general muscular pain.
In the 1970s, however, it was discovered that DMSO could be damaging to the eyes, and medications
which used it began disappearing from pharmacies.
DMSO remained available, however, with more concentrated forms of the chemical sold as
a degreaser in hardware stores.
This would sometimes, despite the known risks of DMSO, be used as a home remedy, including
by cancer patients.
It was suggested that Gloria may have applied concentrated DMSO as a topical painkiller.
This would explain the greasy appearance of her skin, and the strong odour of garlic – in
its concentrated form DMSO smelled strongly of garlic.
The failure of her kidneys caused a urinary blockage, meaning that she could not excrete
the DMSO in her body, leading to it building up to a high concentration in her blood.
During treatment, Gloria was given oxygen.
If this oxygen reacted with the DMSO in her blood, it could have formed Dimethyl sulfone,
which in turn could have been converted to Dimethyl sulfate by the electric shocks administered
when trying to resuscitate her.
Dimethyl sulfate is a highly toxic substance that could have caused the majority of the
symptoms experienced by the medical staff treating Gloria on the evening of her death.
This explanation was widely accepted, though there is still some controversy surrounding
it.
There has never before or since been another incident wherein DMSO reacted with oxygen
inside a patient’s body to form Dimethyl sulfate.
And, in addition to this, Gloria’s family insisted that she did not use DMSO as a topical
painkiller.
However, no other explanation for the events which surrounded the death of Gloria Ramirez
has held up to close scrutiny.
The presence of DMSO and its conversion to Dimethyl sulfate remains the best explanation
for what happened.
In the aftermath of her death, Gloria was referred to as “the toxic lady” by the
press – an unpleasant nickname for a woman who, during her life, was a pleasant and much-loved
individual.
The body of Gloria Ramirez was finally released two months after her death, and her family
were able to bury her in the Olive Wood Cemetery in Riverside, at a service attended by almost
100 people.
Balloons were released from her graveside in her memory, and mourners sang the hymn
Amazing Grace – one of Gloria’s favourite songs when she was alive.