The unexplained cause of death of the woman dubbed “The Toxic Lady” has not been determined after over 20 years.
Gloria Ramirez was given the moniker by the media when several hospital employees fell ill as a result of coming into contact with her “crystal” blood.
The 31-year-old Ramirez’s story is also told by TikToker Rae Spirits, who dives into the eerie incident that took place back in 1994. Listen to this below:
Ramirez was battling late-stage ovarian cancer when she was sent to Riverside General Hospital in southern California following a cardiac attack, according to a 1994 New York Times article.
Ramirez passed away shortly after getting to the hospital as a result of cancer-related complications.
Upon her arrival, nurses took blood samples, but before doctors could detect that the blood contained what seemed to be crystals, they smelled ammonia.
Spirits explain in her video that “a number of medical staff started to feel sick.”
They were experiencing vomiting, seizures, breathing problems, and fainting.
Of the 37 emergency personnel working the shift, 23 were believed to have experienced at least one symptom, and five were reportedly hospitalised. One employee spent two weeks in intensive care while others spent ten days in the hospital.
Gloria passed suddenly later that evening, says Spirits, “because they evacuated the emergency room and were treating patients in the parking lot.”
“There is still much disagreement on why this occurred. Some claim there was a medical cover-up, while others assert there was widespread hysteria.”
A research team reached the assumption that Ramirez had been using dimethyl sulfoxide as a makeshift painkiller for her cancer in 1997. Doctors’ oxygen administration during the procedure may have interacted with it to produce dimethyl sulfone, which can crystallise at
According to the notion, the defibrillator’s electric shocks may have changed it into the very deadly and corrosive gas dimethyl sulphate.
The Riverside Coroner’s Office has endorsed the notion, but Tom DeSantis, a spokesman for the county coroner, remarked at the time: “There is a chance that the mystery may remain a mystery.”
This hypothesis, which was reported in the journal Forensic Science International, was supported by Patrick M. Grant of the Livermore Forensic Science Center.
Grant’s theory is referred to as “the greatest scientific explanation to date” in a textbook by scientists Houck and Siegel.
No other plausible explanation for Gloria Ramirez’s peculiar instance has ever been put up, they said.
