In an emergency room any scenario is possible, but few as unusual as the case of the toxic woman, a young mother who made her doctors sick in unprecedented circumstances, while attending her at Riverside General Hospital in California.
Join us to get to the bottom of this incredible medical history that, due to its rarity, inspired episodes in series like X-Files and Grey's Anatomy .
The "toxic woman" who made her doctors sick and the mystery she hides.What happened?
Around 8:15 p.m.on February 19, 1994 Gloria Ramirez, a young 31-year-old mother of Mexican descent, entered the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital for complications associated with advanced cervical cancer.
The doctors received her disoriented, with rapid heart rate as well as breathing .They should act immediately for their condition, so they provided fast-acting drugs to stabilize his heart.He received some sedatives and lidocaine, but Ramirez did not respond to the medicine.
When they passed the second step, defibrillation, a procedure that is executed in cases of cardiorespiratory stops, the medical staff noticed that an oily layer covered his chest and seemed to catch a garlic smell coming from his mouth.
The situation in the emergency room was He was getting stranger and stranger.When he drew blood from his arm, a strong smell of ammonia penetrated his nose.The fluid also exhibited yellowish particles.It was something unusual and there was no way to deepen it., since doctors inexplicably began to weaken, falling one by one to the ground.
The domino effect
The first one to pass out was Susan Kane, a nurse in charge of extracting, and then Julie Gorchynski, a resident doctor who received the syringe. She felt nauseous and stunned until she vanished .emergency room? Even the respiratory therapist who attended Ramirez, Maureen Welch, shared the same fate as her coworkers.
As a domino effect, fainting and health difficulties spread throughout the hospital.Now, not only Ramirez was being watched by medical staff, but also the people who were taking care of her, among other hospital workers and patients who began to decompensate.
No one understood what was happening, and by measures For security, the place was evicted.It was evident that something in Ramirez, the "toxic woman" as the media baptized her, had caused all this.Only a few people resisted what was unknown at the time.They continued the race to save Ramirez's life.At 8:50 p.m.after 45 minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the "toxic woman" died for renal obstruction .
23 workers became ill
His visit to the site left several turbulence and a mystery to be solved.Of a total of 23 sick workers and five hospitalized for the exhibition Gorchynski was the most affected.The resident physician remained two weeks in intensive care , due to a series of medical complications.
He suffered from pancreatitis, apnea, hepatitis, tremor and a medical condition with which bone tissue does not receive enough blood so it begins to die, called vascular necrosis.
Since this is an exceptional circumstance, the body of the toxic woman was protected in an airtight coffin , and at 11 pm that day, a team to the hazardous materials handling of Riverside County came in search of volatile toxins or toxic gases such as the deadly hydrogen sulfide, to detect the cause of the eventualities in the hospital.Fortunately, none were found.
Subsequently the investigation would be transferred to a team of pathologists, protected as those who faced a nuclear event , who took samples of Ramirez's body in order to solve the medical puzzle.
An extraordinary hypothesis
After days of autopsy, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory finally presented a plausible hypothesis.The report detailed that the toxic woman may have used dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) , a solvent that is also used as a home remedy for pain.It is sold in gel and has a garlic aroma, which coincides with the oily substance they found on his chest and the smell they believed flowed from his mouth.
Supposedly DMSO accumulated in his body due to renal obstruction, then converted to dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2) when oxygen was supplied, until that in defibrillation, with the help of electric shocks, was transformed into dimethyl sulfate (DMSO4), a potent poisonous gas.
The symptoms of the exhibition to DMSO4 they seemed to fit perfectly with those that occurred nearby: fainting, nausea, burning skin and seizures. Also, this hypothesis answered the reason for the yellowish crystals in Ramirez's blood The scientists explained that DMSO2 crystallizes at room temperature.
Among the many hypotheses that arose, they contemplated the possibility that it was a case of collective hysteria, which was discredited with what was considered as "the most scientific explanation to date" .And although from it I derive an extremely detailed report, the relatives of and the nickname "toxic woman" did not agree with him.
What do you think? Do you think this amazing hypothesis is credible? If you liked the article, you may want to read about The 10 most absurd historical deaths
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