Gloria Ramirez
On 19 February 1994, 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez was admitted to a hospital in Riverside, CA with bizarre symptoms…
Gloria Ramirez was born on January 11th, 1963, in the region of Riverside, California - where she would live for most of her life.
Upon reaching adulthood, Gloria married and had two children: a daughter named Evelyn, and a son named Angel Jr. Eventually, her marriage came to an end, and she and her husband divorced.
Gloria continued to live in Riverside, along with her two children and a boyfriend. At the tail end of 1993, just weeks before her 31st birthday, Gloria was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Six weeks later, in February, she would learn that the cancer was advanced - meaning it had begun spreading into other parts of her body. Thankfully, it was not believed to be fatal, but Gloria was unemployed at the time, and did not have health insurance... meaning that her fight against cancer would be an uphill battle.
Gloria's sister would later state that she believed Gloria had started chemotherapy, but it wasn't public knowledge. Gloria often kept her issues to herself, and for several weeks, she silently struggled through her frightening diagnosis and the roadblocks it presented.
That is, until one night in February of 1994. This is the story of Gloria Ramirez.
On February 19th, 1994 - at around 8:15 PM - Johnnie Estrada called 911.
Johnnie, who was Gloria's boyfriend, told emergency dispatchers that Gloria had been struggling with nausea and vomiting throughout the day. Whatever was wrong with her seemed to be escalating, and Johnnie requested an ambulance to take Gloria to the hospital.
The ambulance arrived, and paramedics transported Gloria to the nearby Riverside General Hospital. On the ride, she seemed to be suffering through some confusion and/or delusion, and paramedics noted an elevated heart rate and some abnormal breathing. However, despite these scary symptoms, nothing seemed out-of-the-ordinary as of yet.
Gloria arrived at Riverside General, and was immediately taken back to a room for emergency treatment. The staff began trying to sedate Gloria, using diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam, in a rather quick succession. Gloria responded poorly to the sedatives, and it was at this point that things began to happen very quickly.
Gloria's situation worsened, and it appeared to hospital staff that she was now going into shock. The staff attempted to defibrillate Gloria's heart, but it seemed to have no effect.
Immediately after this defrib attempt, some of the hospital staff members began to notice a couple of medical anomolies. Gloria's skin began to look like it was covered in an oily substance - described as an "oily film" by some in the room - which was most definitely not sweat. Other staff members recalled an odd odor emanating from Gloria's open mouth, which was described as both "garlic-like" as well as "fruity."
Susan Kane, an R.N. that was in the room, began drawing blood from Gloria's arm - in an effort to test her blood. Almost immediately after the needle entered the unconscious woman's arm, an ammonia-like smell began emanating from the syringe. Susan shared the vial of blood with another staff member - a medical resident named Julie Gorchynski - and the two noticed small, crystallized objects in the blood sample.
Moments later, Susan Kane - the registered nurse that took the blood sample - lost consciousness. She fainted, and had to be removed from the room.
Julie Gorchynski, the other woman that handled the syringe of blood, began to feel nauseated and lightheaded herself. She left the room and sat down at a nearby desk, but upon being asked if she was all right, Julie fainted, as well.
Another medical professional that was in the room - respiratory therapist Maureen Welch - began to lose consciousness at the same time as the other two women. Whatever was happening inside that room seemed to be shared by most of the people on the prison staff, and the hospital began reacting quickly.
All of the patients in the emergency department were evacuated to the parking lot, and almost all of the emergency room staff went with them. A skeleton crew of medical professionals remained behind with the hope of stabilizing Gloria Ramirez - including one doctor that tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the young woman alive. Before long, however, she began going into cardiac distress.
After more than 45 minutes of CPR and defribrillation, Gloria Ramirez was pronounced dead at 8:50 PM - less than one hour after her boyfriend had called 911. The stated cause of death, at the time, was kidney failure related to her cancer, but the medical anomoly that had just unfolded would raise many questions.
The incident in the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital had unfolded in approximately half-an-hour, but in that brief duration of time, dozens of people were affected. 23 people in the E.R. that evening would become ill - due to issues arising from the death of Gloria Ramirez - but 5 would remain hospitalized in the days afterwards.
The body of Gloria Ramirez would be placed in a separate room on a temporary basis, but was later sealed in double-plastic bags and then held in an airtight steel container.
An investigation into the incident was overseen by Drs. Ana Maria Osorio and Kirsten Waller - both of whom worked for California's Department of Health and Human Services. The two doctors interviewed more than 30 hospital staff members that had been working on the night of Gloria Ramirez's death, and found that many of the people afflicted shared symptoms. These symptoms included loss of consciousness, shortness of breath, nausea, and muscle spasms.
Dr. Osorio and Dr. Waller also discovered that those affected shared some other traits. On the night in-question, they had been in close proximity to Gloria Ramirez, were mostly women, and all had been examined by medical professionals afterwards. The rest results, including blood tests, came back completely normal.
In the end, the investigation headed by the Department of Health and Human Services released their findings, which stated that all of the affected hospital staff members had suffered from mass hysteria... a belief that was not shared by those that had lived through the bizarre incident.
Julie Gorchynski, the medical resident that had lost consciousness after handling a syringe with blood from Gloria Ramirez, disagreed with the official findings. She did not believe that "mass hysteria" was to blame whatsoever.
Julie pointed to her pre-incident health record, which was basically spotless. However, following the incident in the emergency room, she had developed a number of medical issues. She would spend approximately two weeks in intensive care with breathing issues, and eventually developed hepatitus - as well as avascular necrosis in her knees. All of which happened in a very short period of time.
Julie Gorchynski was just one of the few afflicted in the following weeks and months, but became one of the most vocal critics of the official investigation - which she believed did not go far enough in explaining what in the hell had actually happened.
A scientific analysis of the event was ordered by the Riverside Coroner's Office, who contacted the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This national lab - which is usually tied to nuclear research - agreed to assist in the investigation, and an analysis was headed by Patrick M. Grant of the Livermore Forensic Science Center.
The Lawrence Livermore Labs came to the conclusion that Gloria Ramirez had been using a substance named dimethyl sulfoxide as a pain reliever, due to her cancer diagnosis. Often abbreviated as DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide is generally used as a degreasing solution, which is sold in gel-form at hardware stores. Personally, I don't know how likely it is that Gloria had been using this as a pain reliever, but this is the conclusion found by esteemed analysts.
According to Livermore Labs, DMSO could result in a garlic-like odor emanating from the body of Gloria Ramirez, as well as helping to explain the greasy, shimmery appearance of her skin - which, you may recall, was described as an "oily film" by hospital staff.
The investigation headed by Patrick M. Grant theorized that consumption of DMSO may have resulted in a urinary blockage, which eventually led to kidney failure - which doctors believed was Gloria's cause-of-death. In addition, the DMSO in Gloria's system may have responded very poorly to the treatment given by hospital staff; namely, the usage of sedatives as well as defribrillation, which resulted in the crystallization of her blood - as well as the creation of dimethyl sulfate in her blood. Abbreviated as DMSO4, dimethyl sulfate is a type of sulfuric acid that could have caused symptoms similar to those that the hospital staff experienced.
I say all this, but I need to state for the record that this entire theory - that Gloria had been consuming dimethyl sulfoxide to treat her cancer - was based on patchy guesswork. Analysts and experts at the Livermore Labs did not know for sure that Gloria had been consuming DMSO. In fact, there was no official record that she had even owned it.
Also, there is the fact that this analysis was based on working theories and knowledge of DMSO, and the conditions of Gloria's death were impossible to recreate. It was a situation unlike any documented before, and it was impossible to test if similar results would unfold in a dying individual with the same conditions.
This theory has become the unofficial "answer" of what happened to Gloria Ramirez, but the findings by the Lawrence Livermore Labs have been disputed by other scientists and medical experts in the years since.
Approximately two months after the death of Gloria Ramirez, her body was released for an independent autopsy and burial.
The Riverside Coroner's Office stated that the Livermore Laboratory's DMSO conclusion was the most likely answer to the lingering medical questions, and stated that the official cause-of-death was kidney failure.
As you can imagine, this wasn't a suitable answer for Gloria's loved ones. Maggie Ramirez-Garcia, Gloria's sister, spoke in April of 1994, and voiced her disdain for the official investigation.
"It takes them 10 weeks to say she died ot natural caused? I don't believe anything the county officials or the coroner says.
"I honestly believed my sister may have lived if she hadn't gone into that emergency room that night. I don't know what [the county] is afraid of, but we want answers."
A pathologist was hired by the family to investigate Gloria's death, and was able to examine her body. Unfortunately, due to the bizarre set of circumstances, Dr. Richard Fukumoto was unable to determine any other cause-of-death - owing, in part, to the body's internal organs being cross-contaminated with fecal matter. In addition, the remains were heavily decomposed at this point in time, and most unusually, Gloria's heart was missing at the time of this independent autopsy.
The family of Gloria Ramirez continued to publicly doubt the official narrative, believing that something untoward had happened to Gloria upon entering the emergency ward of Riverside General. In no certain terms, they seemed to allege malfeasance on behalf of the hospital staff and the county coroner, who seemed to have misplaced evidence. In addition to some of Gloria's organs being missing, investigators were unable to find the syringe that had been used to draw Gloria's blood in the E.R. - the same one that hospital staff recall caused an ammonia-like smell to begin emanating, which immediately preceded several staff members losing consciousness.
Gloria Ramirez was buried in Riverside's Olivewood Memorial Park on April 20th, 1994. During the funeral and memorial, her family continued to blame the hospital for failing to care for her. Reverend Brian Taylor, speaking on behalf of the family, continued referring to "that bizarre, tragic incident in the hospital emergency room that took her life," and maintained that the hospital:
"... is likely to blame for the toxic fumes that took her life."
In the years since, many have continued to doubt the official narrative: both the official cause-of-death ("natural causes" - i.e. kidney failure) and the analysis performed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Some have postulated that Gloria might have been exposed to methylamine - which, if you've ever watched "Breaking Bad," you know is an vital ingredient in the creation of methamphetamine - but that theory seems to rely on an even more ridiculous series-of-events than has already been noted.
To this day, it remains unknown what, exactly, led to the strange death of Gloria Ramirez. She is still buried in the Olivewood Memorial Park - in her hometown of Riverside, California - and her story remains unresolved.
Episode Information
Episode Information
Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan
Originally released on Patreon on December 31st, 2018
Released on April 10th, 2021
Music Credits
Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music
Theme music created and composed by Ailsa Traves
Sources and other reading
Wikipedia - Death of Gloria Ramirez
Los Angeles Times - “Woman at Core of Mystery Buried”
The Washington Post - “Case of ‘Toxic’ Woman Closed With Mystery Still Unsolved”