maximus otter
Recovering policeman
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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.
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
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.
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
