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Medical Mysteries, Bizarre Cases

23 medics left convulsing & struggling to breathe after treating ‘Toxic Lady’


TWENTY three medics were left convulsing and struggling to breathe after treating a patient later dubbed "the Toxic Lady".

She died within a matter of hours, and what happened remains one of the biggest medical mysteries in history.

3a95c7ab-3a4c-4ad7-ab58-4efd9071b01d.jpg


Gloria Ramirez was admitted to Riverside General Hospital in southern California, US, in February 1994.

She had terminal cervical cancer and she was having heart palpitations and difficulty breathing.

Nurses took a blood sample and immediately grew concerned when they spotted it had a strange chemical smell and contained crystal-like particles.

They also noticed there was an oily sheen all over Gloria's body and a strange "fruity garlic" odour coming from her mouth.

But it wasn't until one of the nurses fainted, shortly after saying that her face felt like it was burning, that panic really set in.

Several other staff then began to feel sick and lightheaded, and others reported shaking, convulsions, breathlessness and short periods when they stopped breathing altogether.

The hospital quickly declared an internal emergency and evacuated all other patients into the car park, but Gloria, 31, died a short time later.

[One nurse] ended up in intensive care with bone tissue problems and then had to use crutches for months.

In total, 23 of the 37 medics who came into contact with Gloria fell ill. Five required hospitalisation.

Several theories have been put forward about what happened, including mass hysteria (a psychological condition that affects groups of people with a shared environment) and even alien abduction.

But generally, the two considered most plausible are that the conditions in the hospital were hazardous, or that it had something to do with the apparently "abnormal" amounts of dimethyl sulfoxide in Gloria's body.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/25065311/gloria-ramirez-toxic-lady-crystal-blood/

Wikipedia article.

maximus otter
 
“I just said these are the cards I’ve been dealt and these are the hands I’m going to play . . . "

The lady said, when she had gone in for kidney stones and found they had amputated her legs.

The bad news is that your arms are going to be amputated tomorrow! :doh:

Edit 12.25 am: I see escargot got this story earlier, on the dedicated Kidney Stones thread! But I should get the bad taste prize!
 
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Mythopoeika said:
Yes, trepanning does have the real potential to kill if not done properly.
It was really the only way to alleviate swelling of the brain in a time when no proper medical technology was available.
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There is evidence of trepanning being done in Mesolithic times...with indicators that they lived afterwards.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Yes, trepanning does have the real potential to kill if not done properly.
It was really the only way to alleviate swelling of the brain in a time when no proper medical technology was available.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of pics from old "holed" skulls, the little plaques beside them tell as there's no sign of healing the assumption is the patient died of the treatment.
 
Mungoman said:
We've got a saying here...Life is a shit sandwich - some get more shit than bread.
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A version I read in Easyriders (US motorcycle magazine) back in the '70s was 'Life is a shit sandwich. The less bread you have, the more shit you have to eat.'
 
Ascalon said:
There exists a lady who may be the result of two fertilised eggs combining to give a double genetic profile in a single individual, with alternate gene sets in different cells.

Miss Lydia Fairchild.
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Interesting. Wonder how this would affect DNA samples when trying to identify suspects of crimes, as in possibly missing the person because the wrong set of DNA were collected. Here's one article that suggests that chimerism might occur in 10% of the population:

https://www.thetech.org/ask-a-genet...ext=A human chimera is made,be as high as 10%.
 
Doctors are left astounded after finding a fetus growing in a one-year-old girl's skull

Doctors in China had to perform surgery on a one-year-old girl after finding a 'parasitic unborn twin' in her head.

A one-year-old girl was brought in to see doctors in Shanghai, China after experiencing 'delays in motor skills and speech development'.

When the baby was delivered, she was born with 'a large head circumference' and later on, more alarm bells started sounding when she was 'only able to say "mom"' by the age of around one years old.

And after being taken in to see doctors in Shanghai, a head CT scan revealed a rare finding.

The study explains the scan revealed there was a 'large mass' in the young girl's cerebral hemisphere - the part of the brain that not only controls muscle function but also speech and learning.

The mass measured '13-cam maximum diameter' and had 'internal bone structure' with a 'smooth boundary'.

resize


The study adds: "Both ventricles and third ventricle had hydrops, with a fetal shape at a continuous level, along with apparent compression near the cerebral parenchyma."

A fetus was identified as being inside the girl's head, known as fetus in fetu (FIF) - 'a rare developmental abnormality in which a malformed fetus is found within the body of other twin.’ It's extremely rare and is estimated to occur in one in half-a-million live births.

Sadly, despite doctors extensive 'preoperative examinations, laboratory tests, and surgical planning' and the patient being 'unconscious' under general anesthetic during the surgery, the one-year-old experienced 'seizures that were difficult to control'.

She passed away 12 days after the surgery.

https://www.unilad.com/news/world-n...s-in-girl-skull-china-surgery-339407-20240711

maximus otter

PS: Mods, l’ve just realised that we have a specific thread on teratology:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...atomas-parasitic-twins-warning.481/#post-5160

- perhaps this could be moved? (Apologies for the extra work.)

m.o.
 
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The biology behind the recent Olympic boxing row is very interesting. This is a good summary from BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlr8gp813ko

“The most recent woman we diagnosed with having XY chromosomes was 33,” says Claus Højbjerg Gravholt - an endocrinology professor at Aarhus University who spent the past 30 years dealing with DSD.

His patient came to see him because she had no idea why she couldn’t get pregnant.

“We discovered she didn’t have a uterus, so she would never be able to have a baby. She was absolutely devastated.”
 
uair01 said:
The biology behind the recent Olympic boxing row is very interesting. This is a good summary from BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlr8gp813ko

“The most recent woman we diagnosed with having XY chromosomes was 33,” says Claus Højbjerg Gravholt - an endocrinology professor at Aarhus University who spent the past 30 years dealing with DSD.

His patient came to see him because she had no idea why she couldn’t get pregnant.

“We discovered she didn’t have a uterus, so she would never be able to have a baby. She was absolutely devastated.”
Click to expand...
It's a shame intersex disorders have become so embroiled in politics.
maximus otter said:
23 medics left convulsing & struggling to breathe after treating ‘Toxic Lady’


TWENTY three medics were left convulsing and struggling to breathe after treating a patient later dubbed "the Toxic Lady".

She died within a matter of hours, and what happened remains one of the biggest medical mysteries in history.

3a95c7ab-3a4c-4ad7-ab58-4efd9071b01d.jpg


Gloria Ramirez was admitted to Riverside General Hospital in southern California, US, in February 1994.

She had terminal cervical cancer and she was having heart palpitations and difficulty breathing.

Nurses took a blood sample and immediately grew concerned when they spotted it had a strange chemical smell and contained crystal-like particles.

They also noticed there was an oily sheen all over Gloria's body and a strange "fruity garlic" odour coming from her mouth.

But it wasn't until one of the nurses fainted, shortly after saying that her face felt like it was burning, that panic really set in.

Several other staff then began to feel sick and lightheaded, and others reported shaking, convulsions, breathlessness and short periods when they stopped breathing altogether.

The hospital quickly declared an internal emergency and evacuated all other patients into the car park, but Gloria, 31, died a short time later.

[One nurse] ended up in intensive care with bone tissue problems and then had to use crutches for months.

In total, 23 of the 37 medics who came into contact with Gloria fell ill. Five required hospitalisation.

Several theories have been put forward about what happened, including mass hysteria (a psychological condition that affects groups of people with a shared environment) and even alien abduction.

But generally, the two considered most plausible are that the conditions in the hospital were hazardous, or that it had something to do with the apparently "abnormal" amounts of dimethyl sulfoxide in Gloria's body.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/25065311/gloria-ramirez-toxic-lady-crystal-blood/

Wikipedia article.

maximus otter
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This story has always stood out to me as a cautionary tale for the horrific potential for chemical warfare. An explanation I've heard for this event was that a medicine she had been self-treating with combined with a common medicine they had given her that created a poisonous gas. If an army or terrorist cell got in their heads to expose people to some chemical with unnoticeable or negligible effect on their victims' health that only turns into a noxious gas when exposed to some common chemical, they'd be able to turn their victims into living time bombs without anyone knowing before they go off. Scary!
 
StinkyYankee said:
It's a shame intersex disorders have become so embroiled in politics.

This story has always stood out to me as a cautionary tale for the horrific potential for chemical warfare. An explanation I've heard for this event was that a medicine she had been self-treating with combined with a common medicine they had given her that created a poisonous gas. If an army or terrorist cell got in their heads to expose people to some chemical with unnoticeable or negligible effect on their victims' health that only turns into a noxious gas when exposed to some common chemical, they'd be able to turn their victims into living time bombs without anyone knowing before they go off. Scary!
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I vaguely remember a case like this from maybe thirty or forty years ago of a man who drank agricultural chemicals to commit suicide.

A relative discovered him and called an ambulance, where he was taken to a hospital. Staff orderlies were first to notice an unpleasant smell coming off his now deceased body and removed the body to a confined space.

What happened next is ill-remembered by me, but hospital staff entering the room were overcome by the accumulated residual gas.

I can't remember the outcome but people were treated in Hospital from the effects, and on enquiries, this appeared, concerning a search for effects of combined chemistry.

https://chemm.hhs.gov/chemicalsuicide.htm
 
Mungoman said:
I vaguely remember a case like this from maybe thirty or forty years ago of a man who drank agricultural chemicals to commit suicide.

A relative discovered him and called an ambulance, where he was taken to a hospital. Staff orderlies were first to notice an unpleasant smell coming off his now deceased body and removed the body to a confined space.

What happened next is ill-remembered by me, but hospital staff entering the room were overcome by the accumulated residual gas.

I can't remember the outcome but people were treated in Hospital from the effects, and on enquiries, this appeared, concerning a search for effects of combined chemistry.

https://chemm.hhs.gov/chemicalsuicide.htm
Click to expand...
Wasn't there a very similar case involving a woman who'd taken a cocktail of drugs? They combined chemically to make a kind of nerve gas.
 
escargot said:
Here's a Radio 4 programme about a serious illness that was diagnosed with the help of a toy penguin. :cool:

Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis is a rare condition which can cause symptoms similar to those of psychosis and so can be misdiagnosed with serious consequences.

This happened to 'Bex', a 20 year-old student, who was admitted to hospital with serious problems including seizures and hallucinations.

Her correct diagnosis was helped along when the neurologist noticed her attachment to the toy penguin. This suggested a developmental regression found in Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis which he had seen once before as a young doctor.

Safe BBC link -
Room 5



Here is an explanatory page from the UK registered charity The Encephalitis Society.
The author is the same consultant neurologist, Sarosh Irani, who diagnosed Bex in the R4 programme.

NMDAR ANTIBODY ENCEPHALITIS



I am full of admiration for Sarosh Irani. What I'd call a real doctor. You know what I mean. :)
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There's a Mr Ballen episode about anti nmdar encephalitis. It's so rare, doctors don't think to look for it until they've exhausted every other possibility.


(Dunno if it's really him or one of the ripoff channels that use his content.)
 

British man is second human in history with three penises​

Only discovered after he died & donated his body to Birmingham Uni Medical School.

Doctors found that just one of the three penises were functional, however, with the other two attached within the skin of the scrotal sac, explaining why the man may not have been aware of his extraordinary condition.

The man was around 6ft tall, of a medium to large build and, on first examination, looked to have normal genitalia.
Dissection, however, revealed ‘two small supernumerary penises.’

The primary and secondary penises shared a urethra, which ‘coursed through the secondary penis prior to its passage through the primary penis.’
Click to expand...

Here’s the accompanying photo>

1729197181810.png
 
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