The other night I was cooking dinner when a familiar scent triggered my memory and I suddenly remembered a case I had read about several years ago. As strange as that may sound, I was reminded about this particular story because I was using garlic. You may be asking yourself what the hell garlic has to do with the death of a woman, but just stick around and you will soon find out.
Gloria Cecila Ramirez was born on January 11, 1963 and lived in Riverside, California. She was in the late stages of cervical cancer so unfortunately, she was no stranger to hospitals and emergency room visits.
On February 19th, 1994 at approximately 8:15pm, Gloria visited the emergency department of Riverside General Hospital due to complications from her advanced cervical cancer. She was brought in by paramedics and was noted to be suffering from tachycardia along with abnormal breathing patterns. Due to the severity of the situation, the medical staff was forced to administer several different medications to try and stabilize her condition. She was given diazapam, midazolam and lorazepam but when medical staff noticed the medication did not seem to be helping, they had no choice but to defibrillate her heart.
As they began to undress her, they noticed that there was an oily sheen to her skin and as they got closer to inspect it, a nurse noticed a strange scent coming from Gloria. The smell was described as a fruity, garlic-y scent that at first was believed to be coming from her mouth. Meanwhile, another nurse by the name of Susan Kane was attempting to draw blood when she noticed an ammonia-like scent coming from the tube. Confused, she quickly passed the vial over to a medical resident at which point it was discovered that there were manila colored particles floating in the tube. Susan Kane fainted and was removed from the room but not long after, the medical resident, Julie Gorchynski, began to feel nauseous. Knowing she would not be of much help, she made the decision to step out and took a seat at a nurses station out in the hallway. She had begun to feel lightheaded and before she could respond to her co-workers questioning if she was alright, Julie fainted as well. Not long after, a third person fainted. Everyone in the emergency department was subsequently evacuated from the area. In total, 23 people had become ill and five had to be hospitalized.
Through all of the commotion, a skeleton crew from the hospital was working to stabilize Gloria, but sadly, after 45 minutes of CPR and defibrillation, she was pronounced dead at 8:50 pm due to kidney failure.
After her death, the county contacted the Department of Health and Human Services where two different scientists were chosen to investigate the odd situation that had taken place. They interviewed 34 hospital employees who were present the night that Gloria was brought into the emergency department. It was discovered that many of the people who presented the more severe symptoms had been women, and that although they continued to claim to feel ill, their blood work had come back normal after the incident. The scientists believed that it could all have been a possible case of mass hysteria. Julie Gorchynski, refused to believe that it had all been hysteria and she had her medical history as proof. Since the incident, she had stayed in the hospital's intensive care unit for 2 weeks and was suffering from breathing problems. She had also developed hepatitis and avascular necrosis in her knees.
The Riverside Coroners office launched a separate investigation and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was contacted to investigate. From here, they theorized some very interesting things which seem to be the most probable of all things suggested. Based on their findings, it was thought that Gloria had been using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMO) as a form of a homemade pain reliever which could possibly explain the oily sheen to her skin. Dimethyl sulfoxide is a solvent used as a powerful de-greaser which can be bought in gel form at most hardware stores. Many users have stated that it does have a garlic-y taste to it which would also explain the scent reported by the nurse. Then, the oxygen administered to her would have caused the DMO in her blood to react turning it into dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2) which is known to crystallize at room temperature and could possibly explain the manilla particles found in her blood. Last, the electric shocks caused by the defibrillator could have then turned the DMSO2 into a toxic gas called dimethyl sulfate which could have caused the breathing issues reported by some of the staff present. Though these theories seem like the most likely cause of this bizarre incident, nothing has ever been confirmed.
Gloria's family was not content with the Livermore Laboratory's findings. They did not agree with their theories and in turn decided to launch their own investigation. Though Gloria had already been buried, her body was exhumed to carry on with the investigation but unfortunately, since 2 months had already passed, her body was too badly decomposed. Her heart was also missing and some of her other organs were cross-contaminated with fecal matter among other things. Due to this, there was not much that could be done and nothing new was found. The true cause of the illnesses caused to the hospital staff has never been identified.
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