Gloria Ramirez (January 11, 1963 - February 19, 1994) is an American woman dubbed "Poisonous Woman" by the media when some hospital workers get sick after being exposed to her body and blood. She has been admitted to the emergency department when suffering from end-stage cervical cancer. While taking care of Ramirez, some hospital workers were unconscious and others experienced symptoms such as shortness of breath and muscle spasms. Five workers require hospitalization, one of which remains in the intensive care unit for two weeks. He is from Riverside, California.
Shortly after arriving at the hospital, Ramirez died of cancer-related complications. The incident was originally regarded as a case of mass hysteria. An investigation by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggests that Ramirez has self-regulating dimethyl sulfoxide as a treatment for pain, converted into dimethyl sulphate, a highly toxic and highly carcinogenic alkylation agent through a series of chemical reactions in the emergency department. Although this theory has been supported by the Riverside Coroner Office and published in the journal Forensic Science International, it is still a debate within the scientific community.
Video Death of Gloria Ramirez
Emergency department visit
At about 8:15 pm on the night of February 19, 1994, Ramirez, who suffered from an advanced cervical cancer, was taken to the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital by paramedics. He is very confused and suffers from tachycardia and Cheyne-Stokes respiration.
The medical staff injected him with diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam to calm him down. When it became clear that Ramirez was responding badly, the staff tried to wake him up; at that moment some people saw the greasy sheen covering Ramirez's body, and some people noticed the smell of fruit like garlic they thought came from his mouth. A registered nurse named Susan Kane tried to draw blood from Ramirez's arm and noticed an ammonia-like smell coming from a tube.
He gave the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident, who saw the colored manila floating in the blood. At this point, Kane fainted and was ejected from the room. Shortly after, Gorchynski began to feel sick. Complaining that he's dizzy, he leaves the trauma room and sits at the nurse's desk. A staff member asked if he was okay, but before he could answer, he also passed out. Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who helps in the trauma room is the third to faint. The staff was then ordered to evacuate all emergency patients to the parking lot outside the hospital. Overall, 23 people fell ill and five were hospitalized. A crewman stays behind to stabilize Ramirez. At 08.50, after 45 minutes of CPR and defibrillation, Ramirez is declared dead of kidney failure associated with his cancer.
Maps Death of Gloria Ramirez
Investigation
The county health department summoned the Department of Health and Human Services of California, which placed two scientists, Drs.Ã, Ana Maria Osorio and Kirsten Waller, in that case. They interviewed 34 hospital staff who had worked in the emergency department on 19 February. Using a standard questionnaire, Osorio and Waller found that people who have developed severe symptoms, such as loss of consciousness, shortness of breath, and muscle spasms, tend to have certain things in common. People who work within two feet of Ramirez and have handled their high-risk intravenous channels. But other factors that correlate with severe symptoms do not seem to match the scenario in which the smoke has been released: the survey found that those who suffered tend to be women rather than men, and they all had normal blood tests after exposure. They believe hospital workers suffer from mass hysteria.
Theory
Possible role of dimethyl sulfoxide
Gorchynski denies that he has been affected by mass hysteria and points to his own medical history as evidence. After the exposure, he spent two weeks in an intensive care unit with respiratory problems. She developed hepatitis and avascular necrosis on her knee. Riverside Coroner's office contacted Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to investigate the incident. Livermore Labs postulates that Ramirez has used dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a solvent used as a powerful degreaser, as a remedy for home pain. Users report this substance has a taste like garlic. Sold in gel form in hardware stores, it could also explain the oily appearance of Ramirez's body. The Livermore scientists theorize that DMSO in the Ramirez system may have been built due to urinary blockage caused by kidney failure. Oxygen administered by paramedics will be combined with DMSO to form dimethyl sulfone (DMSO 2 ). DMSO 2 is known to crystallize at room temperature, and crystals are observed in some of the blood drawn by Ramirez. Electrical shocks given during emergency defibrillation may convert DMSO 2 to dimethyl sulfate (DMSO 4 ), highly toxic dimethyl esters of sulfuric acid, exposure that may cause some of the symptoms reported from emergency department staff. The Livermore scientists postulated on The New Detectives that the change in blood temperature taken, from 98.6 ° F (37 ° C) of Ramirez's body to 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 ° C) from the department emergency, may have contributed to the conversion from DMSO 2 to DMSO 4 . This, however, has not been confirmed.
Alternate conclusions and funerals
Two months after Ramirez died, his decaying body was severely released for independent autopsy and burial. The Riverside Coroner's Office praised DMSO Livermore's conclusions as a possible cause of symptoms of hospital workers, while his family disagreed. The Ramirez family pathologist could not determine the cause of death because his heart was missing, his other organs were contaminated with dirt, and his body was too severe to rot. On April 20, 1994 - ten weeks after his death - Ramirez is buried at Olivewood Memorial Park at Riverside.
Technical forensic analysis status
Possible chemical explanations for this incident by Patrick M. Grant of the Livermore Forensic Science Center begin to appear in basic forensic textbooks. In Houck and Siegel's book, the authors argue that, despite some weaknesses, the postulated scenario is "the most scientific explanation to date" and that "beyond this theory, no credible explanation has ever been offered for the odd case of Gloria Ramirez. "
Grant's conclusions and speculations about the incident were evaluated by professional forensic scientists, chemists, and toxicologists, passing peer review in accredited, refereed, and published journals by Forensic Science International. The first paper is very technically detailed and indeed, in fact, provides two potential chemical reaction mechanisms that may have formed dimethyl sulphate from precursors of dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethyl sulfon. The second communication provides additional support for postulated chemical scenarios as well as insights into some of the sociology and personal interests inherent in the case.
However, the theory of dimethyl sulfoxide has been under supervision in the scientific community for several reasons, the main reason being that the proposed dimethyl sulphate generation can not be replicated in laboratory tests. Also, the symptoms displayed by nursing staff members who fell ill while taking care of Ramirez were not consistent with dimethyl sulfate exposure. Another reason the dimethyl sulphate theory is unlikely is that the smell observed by the staff is described as "ammonia", but dimethyl sulfate is described to have a faint odor reminiscent of onions.
One letter proposes the production of toxic chloramine gas because of mixing urine with bleach in the nearest sink. This hypothesis, previously submitted to researchers and medical personnel involved in the incident, seems never to be considered by all involved. The harmful effects of this gas are documented in the New England Journal of Medicine . Grant then discussed this chloramine scenario in 1998 Response , and found that it was not approaching the ER event.
Television
Gloria Ramirez's death is the basis for a scene in an episode of the American TV series The X-Files ("The Erlenmeyer Flask"), an episode of the American TV drama Gray Gray's Anatomy, segment of New Detective in Discovery Communications' Discovery Investigation, third season episode of Weird or What? , the "Stink Bomb" segment of the animated movie Memories , an episode of Law & amp; Messages , episodes from One West Waikiki , and season 15 episodes NCIS . It's also used in segments on the Travel Channels television show, Mystery at the Museum .
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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