The Medical Mystery of the "Toxic Lady" - Gloria Cecilia Ramirez
- Eva Munoz
- Jan 30
- 4 min read
On the night of February 19th, year 1994, a 31-year-old woman by the name of Gloria Cecilia Ramirez was admitted into the Riverside General Hospital emergency room after experiencing breathing problems at home. She was already suffering from late-stage cervical cancer, so this experience sent her and her family into immediate fear for her health. Arriving at the hospital at 8:15 pm, Gloria was experiencing severe heart palpitations. Doctors began their standard emergency treatment, stabilizing her heart and giving her oxygen. Gloria had not responded to treatment well and began to go into shock. Staff tried to defibrillate her heart, and during this several medical experts noted a sheer, oily substance covering Ramirez's body. As well as garlic-like odor coming from her. Many staff members figured it was just her breath, but it appeared to be an overwhelming stench. However, Ramirez is practically dying on the table. So, they don’t have much time to question it.
Registered nurse Sausan Kane began taking blood from Ramirez's arm when she noticed something strange. As soon as the blood began to flow into the syringe, Kane noticed it was abnormal. She later described it appearing oily; it appeared thicker than usual and had a strong chemical smell to it. She handed it off to medical resident Julie Gorchysnki who noticed crystalline particles floating around in the blood. This is when chaos erupted.
Kane began to feel uneasy; she felt a burning sensation on her face and soon fainted to the ground. And then, Gorchysnki began to feel nauseous and went to sit down. When a fellow nurse asked if she was feeling alright, Gorchysnki fainted as well. Another nurse named Maureen Welch was the third to faint, after saying the odor from the blood smelled less like a chemo patient and more like an ammonia odor. Even worse when she woke up, she was unable to control the movement of her limbs.
After a total of 6 staff members treating Ramirez fell ill, everything from fainting to vomiting, staff was ordered to evacuate the entire emergency room, all patients and staff. No one knew for sure what could have caused this; many feared they had been poisoned, or there was some sort of chemical leak. In the middle of this, Rameriz was in critical condition and after a skeleton crew stayed behind to try to stabilize her, she was pronounced dead at 8:50 pm from kidney failure related to her cervical cancer, just 35 minutes after she arrived. After her passing, many staff members confirmed this hysteria had something to do with Ramirez, so her body was contained in a metal like seal. In total, 23 people had become ill and 5 were even hospitalized because of whatever happened in the ER that night. One nurse spent two weeks in intensive care, having respiratory issues. Another developed bone marrow issues. The question remained, what happened?
The main theory was the case of mass hysteria. Many psychologists explained that perhaps this wasn’t a medical mystery but a psychological one. But that wouldn’t make any sense. The staff members had long-lasting medical issues because of this event. From liver problems to reduced white blood cell counts. So, investigators finally dug deeper into the center of the mystery, Gloria Cecilia Ramirez. Toxicologists found traces of dimethyl sulfone, a chemical related to a household substance called dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). This could be explained as DMSO was a common home remedy for pain. So, Ramirez could have been using this to soothe her own discomfort. This theory held up and stated that Ramirez applied the DMSO to her skin, and when paramedics gave her oxygen in the ambulance, it was converted to dimethyl sulfone. And with the intense conditions of the ER drugs and difibulator shocks it was converted to dimethyl sulfate. Which was later found to be a highly toxic gas that can cause fainting, seizures, nausea, and organ damage. All symptoms that the hospital staff experienced that night or later on.
It was a crazy case of coincidence and the worst-case scenario; Ramierz’s body had become a hazardous chemical factory. However, many scientists hadn’t accepted this theory claiming the length of time required for a reaction like this to occur and the fact that the human body is not warm enough for the conversion to happen. And even now, this case remains technically unsolved, though the DMSO theory is the one that is the most widely accepted.
This remains to this day one of the most extensive, intense investigations in medical history. Consisting of medical detectives from state, local, and federal levels. Even with this amount of investigation, we still do not have a definitive conclusion. While the DMSO theory is the most accepted, Ramirez's family has spoken out, inquiring into the ten weeks it took for the cause of death to be deemed "natural causes." Ramirez-Garcia furthered this point by arguing that her sister would not have died that night had she not gone into the hospital. Even after Rameriz’s burial her family continued to blame her death on the poor staff of the hospital and continued to state the hazardous fumes weren’t coming from her but something else in the hospital. But the truth is, we will truly never get a confirmed answer as to what occurred that night in the ER.
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