The Tragic Death of Gloria Ramirez

Summary

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Morbid Podcast: "The Tragic Death of Gloria Ramirez"

Hosts: Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart
Date: September 11, 2025
Episode Theme:
A deeply researched yet conversational and empathetic dive into the mysterious death of Gloria Ramirez, exploring both the bizarre chemical phenomena and the human toll, while debunking rumors and respecting the victim’s dignity.

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Episode Overview

Ash and Alaina take on the infamous case of Gloria Ramirez, sometimes sensationally (and hurtfully) dubbed "The Toxic Woman." They carefully navigate the strange chain of events that led to multiple ER staff falling ill the night of Gloria’s death in 1994, examining the scientific investigation, the human tragedies involved, and pushing back strongly against media dehumanization of Ramirez. The tone is respectful yet laced with their signature humor and clarity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Clearing Up the "Toxic Woman" Label

• Alaina (08:13): Stresses the importance of not calling Gloria Ramirez "the Toxic Woman," as her family hates the term, and it undermines her humanity:

  "It's really not great to name somebody that ... her family does not want her to be known as the Toxic Woman. Yeah. Who would want that?"

2. The Strange Night at the ER

• Timeline establishes Gloria's arrival at Riverside General Hospital, California, on Feb 19, 1994, suffering from shortness of breath and advanced cervical cancer ([10:28]–[11:43]).
• Multiple treatments were rapidly administered: benzodiazepines, lidocaine, and bretylium for arrhythmia; mouth-to-mouth by nurse Maureen Welch ([12:05]–[13:03]).
• The ER scene quickly spirals out of control as staff notice Gloria’s “oily sheen” and “odd garlic/fruity odor” ([13:54]–[14:23]).
• Blood samples drawn from Gloria have “ammonia” smell and visible “manila-colored particles” ([15:07]–[16:14]).

3. Medical Personnel Suddenly Collapse

• Multiple ER staff, soon after direct contact with Gloria or her blood, begin fainting or experiencing severe symptoms (tremors, apnea, nausea). ER is evacuated; care continues in the parking lot ([16:15]–[19:06]).
• 23 out of 37 ER team members report symptoms; several are hospitalized, with one requiring surgery for avascular necrosis ([22:52]–[24:35]).

4. Investigation and Early Theories

• Initial suspicion falls on hospital ventilation and toxic chemicals. The hospital had a history of gas leaks and ventilation issues—hydrogen sulfide and phosgene are considered but not found ([25:58]–[29:00]).
• Notably, paramedics who transported Gloria didn't fall ill, focusing suspicion on the hospital environment ([25:21]–[26:27], [29:03]–[29:30]).
• Autopsy conducted under strict safety measures; nothing unusual or toxic found ([30:38]–[33:40]).

5. The Long Search for Answers

• With public concern high and media speculation rampant, Gloria’s family requests an independent autopsy ([35:07]–[35:25]).
• LA Times and community figures demand transparency; officials claim to be ruling out thousands of possible chemicals ([35:40]–[36:14]).
• Forensic Science Center at Lawrence Livermore lab finds no toxins—only elevated levels of naturally occurring dimethyl sulfone ([37:28]–[38:10]).

6. Debunking the Myths: No "Toxic Woman"

• Anderson confirms again: nothing in body explains mass illness, calling “toxic woman” narrative unfair and unsupported ([38:13]).
• Mass psychogenic illness (mass hysteria) cited as an official explanation, though with recognized biases—it’s often more frequently ascribed to groups of women ([41:41]–[42:09]).

7. A Breakthrough Theory: Chemical Alchemy

• On Welch’s insistence, Anderson reviews findings, discovering presence of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)—potentially used topically by Gloria for pain relief ([42:50]–[44:11]).
• DMSO can convert, especially upon oxygen exposure, into dimethyl sulfate: a highly toxic, nerve-agent-like compound ([44:55]–[47:20]).
• Alaina (49:04):

  "They did exactly what they were supposed to do. They put oxygen on her because she wasn't breathing. ... It was just a wildly unusual and freak set of circumstances."

• Oxygen therapy (standard for respiratory distress) unintentionally caused a rare chemical reaction in Gloria’s body, releasing hazardous vapor into the air and blood samples, harming those in close contact ([49:04]–[51:11]).

8. The Human Cost and Media Harm

• The investigation’s conclusion doesn’t dispel public curiosity or media speculation; Ramirez’s family deals with invasive, disrespectful press ([54:25]–[55:29]).
• Alaina (55:57):

  "The speculation was ridiculous, and it obscured her humanity, truly. Gloria Ramirez was a single mother ... whose life was tragically cut short very quickly by cancer."

• Peter King, LA Times (56:02):

  "Speaking well of the dead, allowing them a final dignity, is a basic human courtesy. Gloria Ramirez just got cheated."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alaina (09:36):

  "They were leaving everyone wondering, how had this seemingly ordinary woman's body been transformed into some kind of, like, Trojan horse of toxicity?"

• Ash (17:24):

  "You would see this happening in a show and be like, calm fuck down, everybody."

• Alaina (43:32):

  "Since the 1960s, DMSO has been sold as a gel solvent used in industrial cleaning products ... but it’s also used by some as a kind of folk remedy for pain relief."

• Alaina (47:21):

  "In vapor form, dimethyl sulfate can kill the cells in exposed tissues ... convulsions, delirium, paralysis, coma, and delayed damage to the kidneys, liver, and heart."

• Ash (54:28):

  "If you're rolling up to somebody's house who has just lost their family member and asking if they're a fucking alien, go fuck yourself."

• Alaina (56:44):

  "No one did anything wrong. … it just was a shit set of circumstances that happened to fall into an even shittier one."

• Alaina (58:23):

  "She's not a toxic woman. Get the fuck up. She's Gloria Ramirez."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction/Banter: [02:48]–[08:09]
• Case Introduction & Background: [08:13]–[11:44]
• Timeline of the ER incident: [12:03]–[17:23]
• Staff Symptoms & ER Evacuation: [16:15]–[19:06]
• Statistical Impact on Staff: [22:52]–[24:35]
• Hospital Toxins & Early Theories: [25:21]–[29:00]
• Autopsy & Forensic Investigation: [30:38]–[38:13]
• Official Rulings (Mass Psychogenic Illness): [41:41]–[42:09]
• DMSO and the Fatal Chemical Chain Reaction: [42:50]–[51:46]
• Final Report & Public/Media Aftermath: [54:25]–[56:19]
• Conclusion & Advocating Dignity: [56:44]–[58:23]

---

Tone, Language, and Style

• The hosts maintain a balanced, respectful approach, blending scientific explanation with humor (e.g., joking about dramatic TV hospital scenes, referencing "House" and "ER").
• Strong advocacy for the dignity of Gloria Ramirez and those affected, with poignant criticism of sensationalist media.
• Active efforts to debunk myths, clarify science, and humanize the story at every turn.
• Lightly irreverent but never cruel, with moments of heartfelt empathy.

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Summary Takeaway

Morbid’s retelling of Gloria Ramirez’s death is a masterclass in true crime podcasting: thorough, compassionate, and keenly skeptical of lazy sensationalism. The episode walks listeners through a baffling medical event, unspools the complicated scientific factors at play, and ultimately restores Gloria’s dignity against decades of media mistreatment.

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Final Word (Alaina, 58:23):

"She's not a toxic woman. Get the fuck up. She's Gloria Ramirez."

Transcript

[Ash]

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[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[Alaina]

And I'm Alaina.

[Ash]

And this is morbid with a side of refrigerator cigarette.

[Alaina]

In case you don't know what that is.

[Ash]

I don't promote smoking. I do promote Diet Coke.

[Alaina]

Yeah, that's. That's a thing people call Diet Cokes. A fridge cigarette.

[Ash]

It's just a meme I saw once.

[Alaina]

Yeah, I think that's funny. I think.

[Ash]

I do think it's funny.

[Alaina]

Strawberries and cream, Dr. Pepper. My fridge cigarettes. All right, well, I think. I think Diet Coke is disgusting.

[Ash]

You know what? No. You know which one I do like of the Dr. Pepper ones? The cream soda one.

[Alaina]

Oh, see, I think that's disgusting.

[Ash]

Disgusting.

[Alaina]

Disgusting.

[Ash]

But that's funny because they were in your fridge when I tried them.

[Alaina]

Yeah, because somebody didn't like them. No. You know why they were in my fridge?

[Ash]

Tell me.

[Alaina]

Because I think you thought that was the kind I liked and you got them for one of your get togethers, and then you gave me the rest of them and I felt bad.

[Ash]

She's telling me it's my fault. You know why those are in my refrigerant? Because my refrigerator.

[Alaina]

My refrigerant.

[Ash]

You know why those are in my refrigerator? Because of you.

[Alaina]

No. And that's. No. Because you were doing a kind. I was doing a kindness. And then I did a kindness back by taking them and not saying, like, those are not the ones I like.

[Ash]

Until now.

[Alaina]

Until now, like a year later. You little.

[Ash]

You little.

[Alaina]

Cuz I really don't like those. But you. You drank them.

[Ash]

I like them.

[Alaina]

And I think Aiden drank some. So work out. Worked out for me.

[Ash]

Drink drank, drunk.

[Alaina]

Drank it. Yeah.

[Ash]

What's this, new brother?

[Alaina]

Man, you guys sold out the Sunday show in under four minutes. You're outrageous. I.

[Ash]

It's insane. Like, who are you? Here's the thing. There are tickets being resold. That has nothing to do with us. Yeah, we get a proposal with how many seats and we say, yeah, that price sounds fair. And then people can buy them and do whatever the fuck they want with them, which sucks.

[Alaina]

I realize it sucks a giant ass.

[Ash]

But we have nothing to do with that. So.

[Alaina]

So if you see tickets that are like astronomical priced, it's even on the Wilbur website because you have to look under the thing and it'll say verified resale ticket. That tells you that someone's trying to resell that ticket. Yeah. Because there's like balcony seats that are sitting there right now for like $1200. Whoever did that, go fuck yourself.

[Ash]

Literally.

[Alaina]

But like, that's. That's not us. You know, we're not out here charging fucking. No. And that's how it works.

[Ash]

We literally get a proposal with each seat and how much money it should cost. And we actually went back a couple times and we're like, ah, let's be like a little more fair.

[Alaina]

We would never do that to you.

[Ash]

No.

[Alaina]

So.

[Ash]

So anyway.

[Alaina]

But I. There was just a couple of people that were concerned that we were like trying to.

[Ash]

Concerned that we thought we were out.

[Alaina]

Here thinking we're like Sabrina Carpenter or something. So I'm not.

[Ash]

I wish.

[Alaina]

And also those, like, those tickets that people were concerned about, those aren't like.

[Ash]

We're not like the resale.

[Alaina]

Whoever's selling those tickets, if somebody buys them, they get that money. So. Yeah. We're not profiting off of that anyway. It's just crazy.

[Ash]

It's a wild world.

[Alaina]

Yeah. People. People are. Are getting rougher and rougher out here in these streets. But you know what? You're all great. You're all. That's all that matters.

[Ash]

Fan freaking task.

[Alaina]

Yeah. We just like. It was only a couple of people that like even noticed it and were so. And mentioned it, but we just didn't want anybody thinking that we were out here trying to sell tickets for like $700 and shit. That's crazy. Crazy. But yeah. So. So that's stupid. Stupid of people to do.

[Ash]

I think that's really our only bit nasty, though.

[Alaina]

I know. I think that is.

[Ash]

I like that. I've officially named our business segment Nasty.

[Alaina]

That's pretty fun.

[Ash]

Commences. Bit nasty.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Because I don't think there's anything else that really has come up. No. That. That you guys need to know about.

[Ash]

You know, don't forget we lied. Bit nasty more, but nasty. Don't forget tomorrow, actually, because I think this is Thursday's episode.

[Alaina]

I was gonna say look at. Look at me. I don't know. She looked at me first. Like, I know.

[Ash]

She looked at me blankly and shook her head.

[Alaina]

I just went, oh, no, I don't. I don't know. Those things.

[Ash]

So today is Thursday for you. It's what, Tuesday for us. So we're not even that far apart. Don't worry. We're not getting back into craziness. But anyway, Friday is going to be our bonus episode where we are going to talk about unknown number. The high school catfish scandal.

[Alaina]

Yes.

[Ash]

Which I actually. Last night, me and Drew were watching TikTok together, and people have been filming their reactions when they find out who the catfish is.

[Alaina]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

And I need you all to please do that. If you don't know.

[Alaina]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Ash]

If you somehow don't know who the catfish is at this point, you got to film yourself watching it, because your reaction will be insane.

[Alaina]

I've been spoiled.

[Ash]

I already know I got spoiled ahead.

[Alaina]

Of time, so I won't do it. But you guys should definitely do it.

[Ash]

I got spoiled ahead of time. But even still.

[Alaina]

Still shocking.

[Ash]

Well, even still shocking. And also I was like, well, I don't know. You know, I didn't know exactly.

[Alaina]

Yeah, but we won't. We'll talk about it on Friday.

[Ash]

We'll talk about it on Friday.

[Alaina]

Yeah.

[Ash]

AKA tomorrow, if you're listening, on Thursday.

[Alaina]

Yeah.

[Ash]

All right, so that wraps up.

[Alaina]

Bit nasty now. Bid nasty is done.

[Ash]

Pinky swear.

[Alaina]

Let's go, girls. Today we are going to be talking about a very interesting case, and one that. So we're gonna be talking about Gloria Ramirez. You might see her referred to sometimes as the Toxic Woman, which is shitty. Not great to do that. It's really not great to name somebody that after you hear the story, you'll understand why, like, that's. And her family does not want her to be known as the Toxic Woman. Yeah. Who would want that? You know? So we will not be calling her the Toxic Woman. But I just wanted, in case you had seen it, that that's the same Gloria Ramirez. This story is wild.

[Ash]

I know. Like, I know of this story, but I don't know all the details.

[Alaina]

Very interesting. Very tragic, Very scary. Yeah. So let's start within hours of Gloria Ramirez taking an unexpected Visit to the ER in 1994. Medical personnel who, you know, rushed to her aid that evening, became sick with symptoms that are typically associated with, like, insecticide poisoning. Oh, shit. Like, very strange. Like, tremors, apnea, burning skin, like, randomly.

[Ash]

So, like, if you, like, ingested, like, RAID or something.

[Alaina]

Yeah. And, like, several of these people. Several of these, like, medical personnel required hospitalization themselves because of it. Oh. And in the days and weeks after this, the doctors and nurses who came into direct contact with Ramirez continued to experience these crazy, bizarre symptoms. They were defying logical explanation at this point. And they were leaving everyone wondering, how had this seemingly ordinary woman's body been transformed into some kind of, like, Trojan horse of toxicity? That's what. That's essentially what they were saying, like, what happened here?

[Ash]

Like, because initially they had no idea.

[Alaina]

They had no idea. They didn't know what they had gotten into. Into. And honestly, the. The symptoms and things that were happening were, like, associated with chemical warfare, essentially. What? Yeah. It's wild. So let's start at the beginning.

[Ash]

It's the best place to start.

[Alaina]

It always is. On the evening of February 19, 1994, Gloria Ramirez complained to her boyfriend, Johnny Estrada, that she was having some trouble breathing, which is scary. Yeah. She was only 31 years old. She was a mother of two, but she had been diagnosed with advanced stage cervical cancer about six weeks before this. Oh, wow. So she was actually scheduled to begin some pretty aggressive chemotherapy the following Tuesday. But obviously this night, things took a pretty alarming turn. And so when she started to say, I'm having trouble breathing, this was. It should never be something that's ignored. But getting that diagnosis, it made it even scarier. Yeah, of course. And she actually ended up collapsing. Like she told her boyfriend, I had. Something's wrong. And then she collapsed.

[Ash]

Oh, that's so scary.

[Alaina]

Johnny called the paramedics, and they got there really quickly. And she was very quickly transported to Riverside General Hospital. And this is in California. Okay. She was admitted at about 8:15pm and taken to Trauma Unit 1. Emergency staff assessed the whole situation. Everybody was moving at a rapid pace, but by the time she arrived there, her breathing had gotten way worse. It was super shallow, really quick. It was causing her blood pressure to fall really, really rapidly.

[Ash]

That's so scary.

[Alaina]

So in just trying to determine what the cause of all of this was, doctors and nurses questioned Gloria as best they could. Right. But by this point, she was barely conscious, and she was only able to really provide some short answers. And most of them were kind of unintelligible and frankly, unhelpful at this point.

[Ash]

Yeah, she's not, like, totally with it at this point.

[Alaina]

Yeah. So the doctors and nurses, the whole staff, were questioning the paramedics as well, who transported Gloria. All they knew was that they had been told by Johnny Estrada that her name is Gloria Ramirez, she's 31 years old, and she was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. So the attending medical staff started treatment, and they started by injecting a combination of benzodiazepines Valium, Vercid, and Ativan. Oh, wow. That was to sedate Gloria. Yeah, I would think so, obviously. And followed by more injections of Lidocaine and an antiarrhythmic called Bretilium to stabilize the irregular heartbeat that was. Happen. Happening. Okay. So the drugs started working their way through her system, and in the. In the meanwhile, nurse Maureen Welch began performing mouth to mouth resuscitation with an Ambu bag. God, this is. She's starting to really go intense. It is. It's like one of those intense medical scenes that you're picturing in your head.

[Ash]

It was like I'm picturing, like, something from the pit.

[Alaina]

Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. In the combination of the drugs and this forced air should have been enough to stabilize Gloria's situation, at least for a brief period of time. You know, just trying to. So they could collect some more information, even just to move forward. Yeah. But when it became clear she wasn't responding to the treatment at all, medical staff began preparing to shock Gloria's heart back into a normal rhythm with a defibrillator. Oh, shit. It was just going to hell. Yeah. Like, everything was going Haywire. And she's 31. 31 years old. Jesus. 31 years old. And the first indication that something was amiss came when the nurse cut away Gloria's T shirt to try to apply the electrodes. And she found that the woman's body was, like, covered in what looked like an oily sheen. Like an oily substance.

[Ash]

Like you put, like, Vicks on your chest or something?

[Alaina]

Yeah, like. But one nurse described it as like an oil slick. She said, like you see on the ground of a gas station. Oh, you know, like that kind of sheen, which is different. Yeah.

[Ash]

I was like, so not like sticks on your chest?

[Alaina]

Yeah. It was then that the medical staff noticed a faint odor coming from Gloria's body. What they thought was probably coming from Gloria's body that some would later describe as fruity, while others said it smelled more like garlic.

[Ash]

It's always, like, sickly sweet to me how people can smell things differently or see things differently, or it's like just.

[Alaina]

Different notes of this odor hit someone different. Someone. More like someone's gonna sit there and say, well, it was sickly sweet, like garlic. And it's. They get the note of garlic. Somebody else is like fruit.

[Ash]

It's like when you see people do, like, a wine tasting, and they're like, oh, I'm getting notes of sandalwood.

[Alaina]

Yeah. It's like.

[Ash]

And Then you're drinking it and you're like, I'm getting notes of grape, grape sour, grape.

[Alaina]

Now, by the time this was all going on, Gloria was in full cardiac arrest. Full cardiac arrest. And there was no time to linger over this kind of odd discovery that they had all just come across. Yeah.

[Ash]

They're like, we'll get to the pin when we get.

[Alaina]

Put a pin in that. So medical staff continued the life saving protocols. And following defibrillation, nurse Susan Kane swabbed Gloria's arm and inserted the catheter, then attached the syringe to try to draw blood. Once the vial was filled, Kane handed it to Maureen Welch. It's important that you're getting this transfer of, like, the chain of custody, essentially of everything. So you can. It'll be important later. So again, Susan Cain swabbed Gloria's arm, inserted the catheter, took the syringe, drew the blood, and then she handed it to Maureen Welch, the nurse, who immediately noticed that the blood smelled of ammonia. Oh. Welch passed the vial off to medical resident Julie Gorchinsky, who, in addition to the unusual ammonia smell, noticed there appeared to be, quote, manila colored particles floating in the blood. Oh. They were probably all like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. So moments after the blood sample was collected, Trauma Unit 1 was plunged further into chaos, if you can even believe it.

[Ash]

I was like, yeah.

[Alaina]

How? As he continued his attempt to stabilize Gloria Ramirez, Dr. Umberto Ochoa heard someone shout, catch her, catch her, catch her.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Alaina]

Turning to see what was it like.

[Ash]

Gloria is on a table.

[Alaina]

So turning to see where the fuck that's coming from, Ochoa just barely managed to catch Susan Cain. Okay. Under the arms as her legs gave out and she dropped to the floor.

[Ash]

She, like, lost consciousness.

[Alaina]

Yeah, Just like passed out.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Alaina]

Kane had just been removed from the room on a gurney when Gorchinsky began to feel nauseous.

[Ash]

And these are all the people that.

[Alaina]

Were doing all the medical personnel. Yeah. Feeling as though she was going to be sick, she excused herself from the room and went to sit down at the nurse's station and. But she wasn't there for long before she too slumped to the floor and started exhibiting symptoms of apnea. She was intermittently twitching and shaking, and then she would stop breathing for several seconds. What the fuck? Like picturing this scene from beginning to now, even. And it's, it's going to keep going.

[Ash]

It feels like something out of a television show.

[Alaina]

It doesn't. You would see this happening in a show and be like, calm fuck down, Everybody.

[Ash]

It's like something out of, like, er. Like, so dramatized, you know?

[Alaina]

But even er, you'd be like, no.

[Ash]

No, I know exactly.

[Alaina]

Like, you'd be like, guys, this is not. This doesn't make sense. Yeah, this is.

[Ash]

No, no. It actually feels like something out of House.

[Alaina]

Yeah.

[Ash]

You know when, like, crazy goes down in house and they're like.

[Alaina]

And then he gets to the bottom of diseases. This is a House episode, which is exactly it.

[Ash]

Love that show.

[Alaina]

Houses are great.

[Ash]

I haven't seen that in forever.

[Alaina]

Great show. Yeah. This is because, like, we're going from. And it's also sudden. That's the thing. It's like, all happening very quickly. Like, yeah. Poor Gloria is just six weeks ago diagnosed, and then immediately feels a little shortness of breath, Passes out cold at her house, is rushed to the hospital, and right when she gets there, she goes into cardiac arrest. They're trying to do, like, mouth to mouth, trying to defibrillate her. Heart dropping. And now everybody starts dropping like flies. Like, it just won't stop. I don't. I feel like I would run out of that hospital crying. No, same. Like, that's a lot. Now back in Trauma Unit one, Maureen Welch. Yeah. Another person who handled the vial was the third person affected. She later said, I remember hearing someone scream. And she said. And then she passed out. When Welch regained consciousness, she no longer had control over her arms and legs. What? Yep, yep. Moments after that, the entire emergency room at Riverside General was evacuated. Yeah, I was waiting for that because, like, what the fuck's going on? And medical staff continued treating patients in the parking lot.

[Ash]

Holy cannoli.

[Alaina]

Well, and I quote, hazardous materials. Materials collectors dressed in protective clothing tested the air in the emergency room for dangerous gases. Because that would be my first thought. I'd be like, this is a gas leak. Like, something.

[Ash]

Something's up here.

[Alaina]

Really bad. Is in this ventilation system. And we're all breathing it in right now.

[Ash]

Evidently, this show is sponsored by Better Help. I am kind of an oversharer sometimes. I'll be having a day, and the barista will be like, oh, my God. How are you doing, girl? And I'm like, well, this is going wrong. That's going wrong. You know, I have this to do, but I don't know. I'll get through it. You know what, though? There's a difference between that and actually talking with a therapist, which we should all be doing. And that's where Better Help comes in. With clinically trained and licensed therapists. They've been around for Over a decade, they've helped millions and out of 1.7 million million client reviews, they've got a 4.9 rating. That's iconic. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so that you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences. And if you're not happy with your match, all you have to do is switch to a different therapist at any time. BetterHelp is fully online and you can pause your subscription whenever you need to. With over 30, 000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, betterhel provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with Better Help our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com morbid that's BetterHelp H E-L-P.com.

[Alaina]

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[Ash]

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[Alaina]

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[Ash]

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[Alaina]

So in Trauma Unit 1, Gloria's condition continued to worsen as all this was going on. With her blood pressure dropping at an alarming rate and despite their efforts to stabilize her. And this is just so tragic. Amid all of this, Gloria Ramirez died at 8:50pm from what an autopsy would later identify as kidney failure brought on by cervical cancer. Oh wow.

[Ash]

She was dying as a result of.

[Alaina]

That six weeks earlier and died.

[Ash]

That is wild.

[Alaina]

And it's like she got in there at 8:15pm and was dead by 8:50. Wow. When as all around her people are just falling off, but they're also at.

[Ash]

The same time trying to treat her absolute best.

[Alaina]

Oh, it's awful. It's so tragic all the way around.

[Ash]

Oh, she's so young and you said she had two children.

[Alaina]

She's a mother.

[Ash]

That's awful.

[Alaina]

Now, once Dr. Ochoa had pronounced Gloria dead, her body was sealed into an airtight bag and moved to an isolated room in the hospital because again, they don't know what's nobody knows. Yeah. Among those who helped move the body was er, Nurse Sally Balderas, who had been in Trauma Unit 1 and helped to collect the blood Sample from Gloria once she'd returned to the parking lot. After moving Gloria to where she needed to be, Balderas felt ill and then started retching and complaining of, quote, a burning sensation on her skin. Oh. And then she too needed emergency medical attention.

[Ash]

This is like the fourth or fifth.

[Alaina]

Person at this point in total, 23 of the 37 members of the emergency department who worked the night Ramirez was brought in complained of experiencing at least one symptom. Whoa. 23 of the 37 members of the emergency department.

[Ash]

Is that like mass hysteria?

[Alaina]

Like, well, that's one of the. That was one of the thoughts that people had.

[Ash]

But because I'm like, that's an insane.

[Alaina]

Amount of people who weren't even in the room. This is also too, though. It's like people are experiencing real symptoms. Yeah. Like this, you know, they're not just like, you know, Salem Witch Trial style, like, throwing themselves, saying they see, like, monkeys on the wall and stuff. Yeah. Like they're experiencing, like, actual medical emergencies, which is wild. Yeah. Now, Balderas, whose symptoms were initially described as little more than a headache, required a 10 day hospital stay to treat the symptoms of apnea she began experiencing after exposure.

[Ash]

So that's another person with apnea.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Susan Cain also continued to experience apnea in the days following and was hospitalized at Corona Regional Medical center until her symptoms subsided three days later.

[Ash]

I wonder if they renamed that place.

[Alaina]

I know, I was thinking that too. I was like, woof.

[Ash]

But also, holy shit.

[Alaina]

Yeah. By far the most. The most affected from the exposure to Gloria Ramirez was Dr. Julie Gorginski, who suffered a number of serious symptoms and even underwent surgery on her knees several weeks later to treat avascular necrosis, which is a condition where the bones that make up the joints begin basically dying for lack of blood circulation.

[Ash]

Yeah, I knew, like, necrosis.

[Alaina]

What the fuck? Gorchinsky's other symptoms included hepatitis, pancreatitis, and, quote, chest seizing, muscle spasms, and breathing relapses that necessitated use of a respirator. Holy shit.

[Ash]

I just keep saying that, but, like.

[Alaina]

She was only 33 experiencing all this and she couldn't draw a full breath for, like, months after exposure.

[Ash]

And so what was the thing called that she had the necrosis thing?

[Alaina]

Avascular necrosis.

[Ash]

So, like her, the nerves in her knees were dying off.

[Alaina]

The bones that make up the joints start dying from lack of blood circulation. Holy.

[Ash]

And she's 30 something years old.

[Alaina]

33.

[Ash]

Like, is she going to be able.

[Alaina]

To use her legs now? Among the more baffling elements of the case, at least in the earlier days of this whole investigation. Because now they're like, what the fuck happened here? Yeah. Was that the paramedics who transported Gloria Riverside General, who'd presumably been in close contact with her body and experienced none of the symptoms present among the ER staff?

[Ash]

I just pulled my head back and went to the side, like, huh.

[Alaina]

This led investigators from Riverside county agencies and Cal OSHA to focus their attention on the hospital itself, believing that something was circulating in the hospital, possibly in the ventilation system.

[Ash]

Because a lot of times, like in the. And I don't know, obviously what happened here, but, like, a lot of times they're like, putting oxygen on you, like, that close. That close.

[Alaina]

I mean, they were doing all the things. She was in full. Yeah. Like, she was in very, very much stress on her way to cardiac arrest and in the ambulance. So they were doing a hell.

[Ash]

And think about a trauma unit compared to, like, the size of that, compared to an ambulance, the back of an ambulance and a closed in. Probably not that well ventilated space.

[Alaina]

That's why they're thinking it has to do with the ventilation in the hospital. Yeah. In fact, this wasn't the first time Riverside General had trouble with toxic fumes.

[Ash]

That's, like, not something you want on your Yelp reviews.

[Alaina]

No.

[Ash]

You don't want, like, one that says toxic fumes, let alone multiple one time.

[Alaina]

Having toxic fumes is, like, too many. Yeah. You know? Yeah. In 1991, so only a couple of years before this, two employees required treatment for exposure to what was believed to be a toxic gas leak from a sterilizer. The.

[Ash]

Not a sterilizer leaking toxic fumes.

[Alaina]

Just one year later, a federal inspection discovered that algae growing in the water in a water reservoir was also causing issues.

[Ash]

Babe, we got algae. Yeah, we got algae.

[Alaina]

And a year after that, an inspection found the emergency room was permeated with sewer gas from a drain.

[Ash]

That can kill you.

[Alaina]

Sewer gas will kill you. Yup, yup, yup.

[Ash]

Not sewer gas. In the emergency. Don't you tell me there's more. Is there another comma there?

[Alaina]

No. Okay.

[Ash]

I mean, let alone, like, Jesus, we.

[Alaina]

Got enough commas, Jay. So the hazmat team began by searching for a variety of toxins capable of causing the symptoms that the hospital staff were dealing with, particularly hydrogen sulfide, which is an insidious poison that smells like rotten eggs and at high concentrations can kill a person after one or two whiffs.

[Ash]

Insidious?

[Alaina]

Insidious.

[Ash]

People who go into hazmat are just, like, straight up Heroes. Yeah, like imagine like risking your shit like that.

[Alaina]

I know. And fastgene, a chemical commonly used in the creation of organic chemical compounds, but one that can also be used to create a chemical weapon. Oh, good. Yeah, don't write that down. It tears open capillaries in the lungs, drowning its victims in their own blood.

[Ash]

Oh, that is like chemical warfare.

[Alaina]

Chemical weapons are the scariest thing in the entire universe. And they sound made up. No, they do.

[Ash]

It sounds like something out of like a futuristic novel.

[Alaina]

I'm horrified right now. So where hazmat team is looking for hydrogen sulfide, insidious poison that smells like rotten eggs and can kill you with a couple whips whiffs. Or phasgene, which is literally something that will tear open capillaries in your lungs and drown you in your blood. Okay. Fortunately, neither was found at the hospital.

[Ash]

Well, that's, that's really that fantastic news.

[Alaina]

So in addition to the negative results from the tests looking for toxins in the air, the theory that those affected had been exposed to something circulating in the vents or other hospital symptoms, while certainly like a reasonable theory, was undermined by other obvious factors. For one, Dr. Ochoa, who'd probably spent more time with Gloria Ramirez than anyone else, was totally fine, never experienced any ill effects from exposure to Gloria's body.

[Ash]

Interesting.

[Alaina]

And that is like something you need to understand. He was closest, probably spent the most time, and he did not experience anything from Gloria Ramirez's body. Also, if something had been circulating in the vents or the water supply there, it almost certainly would have affected more than just those working in the er. It would have also affected patients and visitors. Because it's not just like the only people in the ER are the people working there. There's a ton of civilians walking around.

[Ash]

Well, and even probably other areas of the hospital too. It's not always just one building. I don't know, maybe it is in this case.

[Alaina]

So because of that, investigators returned to the only lead they had, which was Gloria Ramirez's body. Might have had something going on, which.

[Ash]

I understand needing to like, check all the boxes.

[Alaina]

Oh yeah, I don't think anybody faults them for having to look at that as an option. So after several delays, the autopsy of Gloria Ramirez took place on February 25th with. And from the start, it was clear that it was going to be anything but a typical autopsy. Okay. Working in a specially sealed room, the 90 minute autopsy was conducted by a team of four pathologists all dressed in airtight toxin proof safety suits.

[Ash]

How long does a typical autopsy take?

[Alaina]

Honestly, it can take, it varies. That's the thing. 90 minutes is like. Sure. Like it really depends on like so many factors in an autopsy. If it's a complete autopsy, if it's a keep, if it's a return. Like what is the difference between keep the organs for research or you're returning them to the body? If it's, if it includes the, the head, like if it's a neuro case, if they want, you know, the spinal cord taken out. If they want, you know, bone marrow, say they want so many things, for.

[Ash]

Lack of a better term, like the works. So how long does that take?

[Alaina]

Like that could take hours.

[Ash]

Okay, so this one isn't really insanely long.

[Alaina]

This is, this is pretty. This is a pretty decent one. I would say. Like this is. And again, somebody very skilled and capable can probably do a complete one and in less time than I probably could.

[Ash]

And like when you were performing them, how many people were working at the same time? Is four people working on the same body.

[Alaina]

Four pathologists is a lot of pathologists to have in the room. But I understand why they did it in this case because if it's like I've never worked with four pathologists on an autopsy.

[Ash]

How many would you typically.

[Alaina]

Usually I was only alongside one and if it was a neuro case, maybe two, because it was like a neuropathologist with us.

[Ash]

And the pathologist is like the doctor, right? Yeah, they're like the medical examiner.

[Alaina]

They're the specialist. I see. So four pathologists, that's a lot. Yeah. Unless it's like they. Unless they maybe confuse four pathologists with a couple of techs too. But I could see why they would have four pathologists here because just what the going on. Yeah, you know, like, but also at.

[Ash]

The same time I'm like, if this is coming from Gloria's body, which it sounds like it's probably not for pathologists, like you want to take all those people out. I know you want to take all those pathologists.

[Alaina]

Well, they're wearing their safety suits. They're wearing the PE required, I guess. So that's good. They're wearing like, like airtight toxin proof safety suits.

[Ash]

Kind of like what you wore doing during COVID What?

[Alaina]

I was just gonna say during COVID we wore those.

[Ash]

I remember seeing you in your full garb.

[Alaina]

It's crazy and it sucks. Like you're sweat. Very necessary, won't ever knock it, but damn, you sweat. Oh yeah, you sweat. And it's hard to do things. And it's like you don't get to be as precise as you want to be because you're in this really bulky thing. Yeah. We had, like, special, like, bubbles, like plastic bubbles that would go over the person's head. So you had to, like, reach into the bubble to do the brain removal. And it was not great. Wow. Yeah. Covid was a fucking time for. For autopsies.

[Ash]

A time for autopsies. And you're also just a wild. Wild. You're like. We'd have to reach into the bubble to do the brain. Like, she's just like, I'll take a medium iced regular. Like, oh, okay. Totally.

[Alaina]

It was crazy.

[Ash]

Damn. I know. Otherwise, like I said, you're a wild.

[Alaina]

It's pretty standard otherwise, but, like, you're not. You had a bubble in some crazy suit. And it's harder, but. Yeah. So although the situation that occurred in the ER Was highly unusual, it was, in fact, not the first time it had happened.

[Ash]

Also, Wait, like, everybody going down like that?

[Alaina]

Well, several years earlier, emergency room workers in Perth, Australia, were kind of similarly affected to a less dramatic extent, I will say, during the examination of a man who had killed himself by ingesting weevil poison. Oh, fuck. Yeah. With that in mind. So there was some kind of precedent for this? I won't say it's a direct precedent, but there is some kind of precedent. Yeah. With that in mind, the pathologists expected to find something in Gloria Ramirez body that could wreak similar havoc, like an organophosphate pesticide. But neither the search of her apartment or the autopsy turned up any chemicals like that. Okay. Also, although she had been diagnosed with the advanced stage cancer only recently, she hadn't started chemotherapy and had only been taking Coppazine, a drug used to control nausea. Okay, so she wasn't even on any, like, the crazy, like, chemo drugs, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. As the evidence collected during the autopsy was being analyzed, Gloria's body was put back into airtight storage, and county officials continued the investigation. The family, meanwhile, was left in kind of a limbo state, which must have been really hard. They still had no explanation for what the fuck had happened. And with the investigation still open, they couldn't bury Gloria and start the grieving process. That's tough.

[Ash]

And I imagine that, like, somebody was, like, close by when all the chaos was happening in the er and that must have been really traumatic.

[Alaina]

That must have been really traumatic. Now, by mid April, the Ramirez family hired an attorney and filed a request for a court order that would allow for an independent pathologist to conduct another Autopsy.

[Ash]

Good for them.

[Alaina]

Also, others in the Riverside community started to wonder whether the county's refusal to release their findings or update the public was perhaps an indication of a cover up. Yeah, that was them wondering that. I'm not saying that's what it was.

[Ash]

I could see why people would be curious like that.

[Alaina]

Robert Schwartz, an environmental attorney, told the LA Times, the county is destroying the single most important piece of evidence. They're destroying Gloria Ramirez's remains. By having delayed things this long. Tom DeSantis, a representative from Riverside county, responded to the public pressure and said this investigation isn't as simple as testing a hypothesis by checking for the presence of a particular chemical. The testing that is being performed is designed to rule out the thousands of possible chemical compounds and narrow the focus of the investigation.

[Ash]

You can kind of see both sides here.

[Alaina]

Yeah, yeah, you really can. But he. But he couldn't provide any additional information at that time.

[Ash]

But it's also like, if you don't have the answer, what do you have to say?

[Alaina]

Yeah. Now, while the county struggled under increasing pressure from the public, the evidence and samples collected from the autopsy were sent to the Forensic Science center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is a former nuclear weapons production and testings lab that was transformed and rebranded in the early 90s to focus on, you know, areas of natural sciences. Okay. The technicians at the Forensic Science center had expected to find the culprit in gases contained in the headspace of the containers, if not in the liver itself. But all they found was nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and argon. Normal constituents of air. Yeah, just nothing out of the ordinary.

[Ash]

Right.

[Alaina]

Among the mysteries the technicians at the lab were able to solve, though, was the ammonia smell that many of the emergency room personnel noticed emanating from Gloria's body and the blood that was taken. According to Brian Anderson, a director at the Forensic Science center, the odor was most likely caused by Gloria's body breaking down that anti nausea medication that she was taking at the time. Oh, okay.

[Ash]

That's interesting.

[Alaina]

It is interesting. Ultimately, the team at the center was able to identify and explain many of the unusual compounds found in the blood and tissue samples submitted by the county. In fact, the only thing Anderson and his team couldn't explain was the heavy presence of dimethyl sulfone, which is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in everything from plant and marine life to food and beauty products. Oh, okay. As far as Anderson knew, this compound was a relatively harmless chemical, and it really couldn't have caused the damaging effects that people in the ER were Suffering from that night. So he returned to the Riverside coroner's office and reported his findings, confirming that no toxins were found in Gloria Ramirez's body.

[Ash]

So anyone calling her the toxic woman is stupid.

[Alaina]

It's not real.

[Ash]

Exactly.

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[Alaina]

The technicians at the forensic science center had done as thorough an analysis as possible in 1994. Anderson's findings were more or less the final word. Despite having no explanations for what had happened at Riverside general, county officials were confident there was no existing threat at the hospital. And the strange case of Gloria Ramirez was effectively closed, at least as far as the county was concerned. Okay. The coroner's office released the body to the family in late April. And Gloria Ramirez was buried at olive wood cemetery in Riverside on April 27, 1994, almost two full months after she passed away.

[Ash]

Like, that's tough on that family.

[Alaina]

So if Riverside county officials had hoped that releasing Gloria's body would put an end to the chaos and the mystery surrounding this case, they were definitely disappointed in the weeks after that. Yeah, the family still pressed the coroner's office for answers, Rightfully so. The. And they were, unfortunately, never going to really get any. And in August, Dr. Gorchinsky filed a $6 million lawsuit against Riverside general hospital, alleging that conditions at the hospital and failure of safety protocols had left her with more than one debilitating condition preventing her from working. And she was a 33 year old doctor. Right. According to her lawyer, Russell Kuzman, the suit was filed in part to compel the hospital and the county to release whatever information they had related to the case. Case he said later to reporters, clearly, she's the victim of some kind of toxic poisoning. The question is, where did it come from? And who is responsible? Now, officials from the county and Riverside hospital immediately took a defensive position, contracted contacting the California Department of Health and Human Services to undertake a study to determine the cause of the symptoms. So they were like, we're going to try to figure this out. After reviewing the medical information from most of those affected by it that night and interviewing 34 of the staff members working at the hospital that evening, the DHS concluded the symptoms experienced by those who came in contact with Gloria was a case of mass psychogenic illness, a situation in which symptoms of physical illness are experienced by large groups of people for psychological reasons. Right.

[Ash]

That's kind of what I was thinking.

[Alaina]

Exactly. Now, although the study allowed for the possibility that a small number of those affected, particularly those who came in close contact with Gloria Ramirez's body, were, quote, exposed to a poisonous substance, they did not know the origin of the poison. It's important to note that mass psychogenic illness tends to be applied with bias, though, and is ascribed far more often to women than it is to men.

[Ash]

And a lot of women went down.

[Alaina]

That's kind of the case here.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Alaina]

Now, so. So maybe it wasn't necessarily.

[Ash]

That is what you're kind of implying.

[Alaina]

Nobody. Yeah, nobody really knows here. So, as one would expect, the county's official explanation of mass psychogenic illness was poorly received. I bet. Especially by those directly affected. When Riverside ER nurse Maureen Welch read the report, she went to the Forensic Science center and implored Anderson to take a second look at the case, because she was like, this is. Yeah.

[Ash]

And, I mean, you can kind of understand why people thought that just because this is, like, such an insane case.

[Alaina]

Yeah, of course. But the people who experienced it are pissed.

[Ash]

Exactly what I was just gonna say.

[Alaina]

Now, upon review, it was discovered that what was initially identified as dimethylsulfone. Remember, the thing that wouldn't have caused issues found in a lot of things.

[Ash]

Found in cosmetics and everything.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Was in fact dimethyl sulfoxide, or dmso. The only difference between those two chemicals is that DMSO has one oxygen atom, not two. So that changes the compound completely. Yeah.

[Ash]

Oh, God. Not physics.

[Alaina]

Let's talk about it.

[Ash]

Or the chemistry.

[Alaina]

Lol. I was like, no, it's not. You said, no. In fact, I was like.

[Ash]

I was like, you're in chemistry. I was bad at both.

[Alaina]

Fortunately, it's not.

[Ash]

But unfortunately, it is chemistry.

[Alaina]

Organic chemistry, in fact. So since the 1960s, DMSO has been sold as a gel solvent used in industrial cleaning products. What? But it. It's also used by some as a kind of folk remedy for pain relief and its occasional use in the treatment of interstitial cystitis. Excuse me. A condition causing painful urinary tract lesions in women.

[Ash]

Ouch.

[Alaina]

The presence of DMSO would explain the oily sheen discovered on Gloria Ramirez's body, assuming that she may have used it for pain relief. Like a topical pain relief. Right.

[Ash]

Because she's.

[Alaina]

This would also. This would also explain the aroma of garlic described by several of the workers present in the room with Ramirez, because these are both hallmarks of this product. Oh, wow.

[Ash]

I mean, I love the smell of garlic.

[Alaina]

I do, too.

[Ash]

But I don't love a toxic thing.

[Alaina]

The presence of DMSO alone didn't explain the symptoms supposedly caused by exposure to Gloria, though. Okay. That alone. It was only when Anderson checked the chemical index text to review DMSO that he noticed an adjacent entry for a different chemical that seemed the most likely explanation for what had caused the medical mystery surrounding the death of Gloria Ramirez. Okay. Dimethyl sulfate. We have.

[Ash]

There's so many dimethyls.

[Alaina]

There is. In most cases, dimethyl sulfate is used in small quantities in the manufacturing.

[Ash]

I'm like, you're nerding out so hard over there.

[Alaina]

I have my finger up.

[Ash]

She's like, in most cases, with a little pointer finger. I'm like, hey, I just wanted to point out.

[Alaina]

I could see her face immediately when my finger went up.

[Ash]

I was like, it's so funny.

[Alaina]

So in most cases, finger went up again. Dimethyl sulfate is used in small quantities in the manufacturing of dyes, perfumes, and certain drugs. Drugs. But the chemical has an unpleasant history as one of the main components of this thing called nerve gas. Used in chemical warfare. Not.

[Ash]

Not more chemical warfare.

[Alaina]

Dyes, perfumes, certain drugs. Oh, also nerve gas.

[Ash]

Nerve gas. I'm thinking that whole thing that the Seems.

[Alaina]

Doctor experience seems kind of legit, huh? Or.

[Ash]

Nor.

[Alaina]

Yeah, kind of a very unpleasant history, for sure. In vapor form, dimethyl sulfate can kill the cells in exposed tissues, such as the eyes, mouth, and lungs. When absorbed into the body, dimethyl sulfate causes convulsions, delirium, paralysis, coma, and delayed damage to the kidneys, liver, and heart. Didn't somebody have kidney failure? Gloria did.

[Ash]

Oh, Gloria did.

[Alaina]

Okay. Given its uses and the knowledge and skill required to handle it, that no one suspected dimethyl sulfate in the case of Gloria Ramirez, because that's like chemical warfare. Like. No. After all, why would. Like, a mother of two housewife, just normal, everyday human being. Why would she have come in contact with such a volatile chemical? Yeah. Like, where would she have come in contact with that? I don't know. But just as dimethyl sulfone can be transformed into dimethyl, the dmso.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Alaina]

Compound with the addition of just one oxygen molecule doesn't take a lot to transform it. Dimethyl sulfate can be created by adding one more oxygen model molecule to dmso. Oh. So it's very. It's so delicate. Yeah. And it transforms a fairly innocuous chemical into a literal toxic gas capable of killing a person. Like that.

[Ash]

That's so scary.

[Alaina]

One extra oxygen molecule.

[Ash]

That reminds me of an episode of Below Deck where I forget which.

[Alaina]

Very interested to see.

[Ash]

No, it's actually funny. I forget which chief stew it was and which, like, lower stew it was. But she kept mixing cleaning products that they were telling her not to mix.

[Alaina]

Oh, no.

[Ash]

She was like, you're literally gonna create mustard gas and blow the boat up.

[Alaina]

And it's so easy to do.

[Ash]

Yeah. They were like. And they told her a couple times, and finally she had to go to the captain. She was like, ah, hey.

[Alaina]

Yeah. It's like.

[Ash]

And the girl's like, oh, yeah, sorry.

[Alaina]

You have to be. And I'm telling you right now, be so careful with that. Yeah. When you are cleaning, do not mix. Have an open window. It's so easy for people to get so sick from that. And I don't want any of you getting sick, so be careful.

[Ash]

No, we love you. Just use. Oh, I'm trying to think of the lady on the commercials. I love her.

[Alaina]

What's the. What's the floor? Starts with pictures.

[Ash]

I love that woman on the commercial. Palm olive.

[Alaina]

No, Pine sol.

[Ash]

I love pine.

[Alaina]

I was thinking pine Sol, but I said palmolive.

[Ash]

No, that's actually funny because my brain.

[Alaina]

Was doing the same thing while I said palmola.

[Ash]

I love pine sol.

[Alaina]

I'll mix it with warm water.

[Ash]

Do you think that's okay?

[Alaina]

That's fine. Okay. Yeah, you're okay there. All right, cool. So, yeah, be careful, everybody. But because they had taken the case pro bono, which is pretty great, Anderson and his team had to work nights and weekends over an extended period of time before they finally arrived at the best possible explanation for what the fuck had happened at Riverside General. Yeah. The team theorized that, like many cancer patients, Gloria Ramirez had turned to dmso. The one that was okay. Yeah. To help manage her cancer related pain, which would account for the oily sheen on her skin.

[Ash]

And you said that was okay.

[Alaina]

That was okay. When the paramedics place the oxygen mask on her in the ambulance, Gloria's bloodstream was flooded with oxygen. Oh. Creating the highly unusual set of circumstances required to transform the DMSO into dimethyl sulfate. Blew my mind when I heard that. No, my mind is wow. Because they did exactly what they were supposed to do. They put oxygen on her because she wasn't breathing. They did nothing wrong.

[Ash]

Yeah, because they didn't. How would.

[Alaina]

They would have no idea that. That is not a common question that you have to ask someone like, do you have DMSO on you?

[Ash]

I've never.

[Alaina]

And also, she wasn't able to really respond to a lot anyways. Yeah. So they didn't do anything wrong. This was not them being like, negligent. No, but it's just a wildly unusual and freak set of circumstances.

[Ash]

Well, and also, realistically, I would assume that that could have affected as many people as it did because it's. Did it like, spread through the. How does that work, actually? Well, her, like so many of the ER staff went down because her.

[Alaina]

Her blood was now filled with toxic gas, essentially.

[Ash]

Okay.

[Alaina]

Because her bloodstream was now flooded with oxygen. And that added the extra oxygen molecule to DMSO to turn it into that essential nerve gas.

[Ash]

So, like even holding a vial of her blood, it could kind of like go through the vial.

[Alaina]

Well, it just. It's going to be exposed to the air somehow because it's going to be transferred into the vial. So there is going to be some kind of. I see. You know, and she's even just from that little pin prick to insert the catheter to put the syringe in, it went into the air, exposure to the air, like it's vapor, essentially. Like it can travel. But I. It just blew my mind.

[Ash]

Like, shocking.

[Alaina]

What are the goddamn odds of this?

[Ash]

I would say they're very insane.

[Alaina]

Yeah. So the chemical reaction. Well put.

[Ash]

I was like. In my head, I went to say, they're low, and then I was like, yeah, no, they're not high. But I questioned myself. I was like, they're crazy.

[Alaina]

So the chemical reaction would also explain the presence of the white or off white, like manila is what they described. The particles, crystals observed in the blood samples taken in the er when the blood sample was drawn, small amounts of the lethal gas, less, like I said, leaked from the syringe, which explains why those closest in proximity, Kane, Welch and Gorchinsky were the most affected. Oh. Because they all had. And as they went out further, people experienced considerably less symptoms of exposure. So it would be the same as chemical warfare.

[Ash]

This is horrible, but incredibly fascinating.

[Alaina]

And just what the fuck are the odds that all this would happen? It's just like. It really is. Is wild.

[Ash]

It really is an episode of House. I'm like, has House done an episode on this?

[Alaina]

Probably.

[Ash]

I'm about to Google it.

[Alaina]

No, I'll let you know. It would be impossible for Anderson and his team to recreate the exact circumstances necessary to, like, concretely prove this theory. So when they submitted the report to the coroner in the case, it was only so they could get the county's feedback. Nevertheless, the county, the Riverside County Coroner's Office, accepted the Forensic Science Center's explanation because it makes so much fucking sense, and release the report as the final word on the matter. Although some people were skeptical of the results, pointing out that a reaction like that would have required an enormous amount of dmso. Oregon State toxicologist Frank Dost pointed out, in that stage of fighting for her life, Ramirez may have really overloaded on it. Yeah. Creating the precise set of circumstances under which the chain reaction could occur. And I fully believe that. I think this was just a freak set of circumstances that absolutely no one is at fault for.

[Ash]

Totally. I mean, you think of, like, the products that are available that you don't realize how, like, dangerous they can be. I just. I'm 29 years old. I just found out that you can't put Vicks under your nose overnight.

[Alaina]

Yeah. That's.

[Ash]

Honestly no idea.

[Alaina]

Like, that is something we used to do if we were, like, younger. Yeah.

[Ash]

And it's these home remedy things, but.

[Alaina]

When you start looking into them, you realize how dangerous this can be. Yeah.

[Ash]

I mean, I'm so glad I'm related to you because you're so science. I would have no idea.

[Alaina]

It's scary. And even things like, like dry shampoo, aerosol dry shampoo. I know the fact that that's been connected to so much cancer and different, like, stuff.

[Ash]

It's so scary.

[Alaina]

You're better off with, like, the poly natural, like, pump powder ones. Yeah. But you also have to be careful of those. So, like, be really careful when you're picking because you just don't want to put yourself in that position, you know? Now, for the last, you know, over 25 years, Gloria Ramirez has been called the toxic lady. Someone whose existence was only significant in death essentially because of, like, what people said about her, the curiosity of Course. Is only natural. I mean, it's a fascinating. I just said the circumstances of her death are bizarre. They're incredibly complex, easily lending themselves to fantastical interpretations of it. But from the moment she died, Gloria's family had to face a seemingly endless stream of reporters, media personalities, and headlines that accused Gloria, who was not here to defend herself, of everything from PCP addiction to being an alien.

[Ash]

I'm sorry, are you kidding me?

[Alaina]

Yeah.

[Ash]

If you're rolling up to somebody's house as a reporter, like, listen, I get it. Reporters are a thing. If you're rolling up to somebody's house who has just lost their family member and asking if they're a fucking alien, go fuck yourself.

[Alaina]

Reevaluate your fucking life choices.

[Ash]

Reevaluate your entire existence as a human. Are you joking? And PCP addiction. Like, what? Yeah, where do we even get that from?

[Alaina]

It's just grasping at sensational headlines, that's all.

[Ash]

That is so shitty.

[Alaina]

It's outrageous. I mean, the speculation was ridiculous, and it obscured her humanity, truly. Gloria Ramirez was a single mother of two young children. She was described as, quote, a simple homemaker. According to Reverend Brian Taylor, who spoke at her graveside, she was also a sister, a girlfriend, and a member of the community whose life was tragically cut short very quickly by cancer. Yeah. Like so many of us, her life was just ordinary, hard, like just a. Just a life.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Alaina]

Hardly befitting the science fiction narrative that she is so often involuntarily inserted into. Yeah. Yeah. When Gloria was finally laid to rest on April 27, more than two months after her death, it was under the invasive eye of journalists, photographers, a whole host of people who were shouting questions at the grieving family at the funeral, setting a disrespectful and thoughtless tone that honestly permeated her legacy for more than two decades at this point.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Alaina]

Get the.

[Ash]

Away from people's gravesides. Unless you're related or, like, get out of here.

[Alaina]

In a brief article for the Los Angeles Times, Peter King's summation of the funeral is something that we should probably all keep in mind today. They wrote, speaking well of the dead, allowing them a final dignity is a basic human courtesy. Gloria Ramirez just got cheated.

[Ash]

Yeah, she absolutely did.

[Alaina]

And it's so true, because I fully believe the theory that the Forensic Science center came up with and Anderson and his team. It makes so much sense just from a science. And it's just a freak set of circumstances that can happen but obviously don't happen often. Yeah, no. Right. And no one is at fault. It was. No one was doing anything that they shouldn't have been doing.

[Ash]

No.

[Alaina]

Gloria was in pain. She was doing what she was probably. She might have been. Who knows? Maybe she was grown up with that remedy. You know what I mean? Like, was just like that by stuff.

[Ash]

And Vicks under my nose.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Like she was just doing what she had to do to get relief, which any of us. None of us who have not experienced cancer, like, personally can speak to, because I can't imagine that. No. And the paramedics were just doing their job, getting oxygen to her brain and her lungs when she was losing it rapidly.

[Ash]

Right.

[Alaina]

Doing their job. And the ER staff was doing their job. And it's like. And it just. Nobody did anything wrong. Every. It just was a shit set of circumstances that happened to fall into an even shittier One. Yeah.

[Ash]

100%.

[Alaina]

But Gloria Ramirez is not the Toxic Lady.

[Ash]

No. She's a. Like you just said, she was like a family member of many people and a friend.

[Alaina]

She's a friend, a sister, a girlfriend, a community member and somebody who got sick in a shit set of circumstances happened. Yeah. That's it. It.

[Ash]

But it's like, let's give people dignity.

[Alaina]

Yeah. It's more fascinating what happened to make all of that occur than it is to sit here and call her the toxic Woman and say that it was something.

[Ash]

Ask if she's alien or like, things like that.

[Alaina]

Like something naturally occurring in her body or something like that. Like, it's just fucking organic chemistry. Really. People are such gone awry. Wow. But that's the tale of Gloria Ramirez. And I hope her family has gotten some kind of relief over the. The past couple of decades here. Yeah. Because we would hope so.

[Ash]

And here we are to set the record straight. Not a toxic woman.

[Alaina]

She's not a toxic woman. Get the up. She's Gloria Ramirez.

[Ash]

That really was a fascinating case though.

[Alaina]

It is.

[Ash]

Had heard of it, like, but I did not know everything that went into that.

[Alaina]

Yeah. I had only heard her called the Toxic Lady.

[Ash]

Me too.

[Alaina]

So. Yeah. Wow. All right, well.

[Ash]

Well, thanks for listening. We hope you keep listening and we.

[Alaina]

Hope you keep it weird, but not.

[Ash]

So weird that you're rolling up to people's houses or their grave sites asking stupid questions. I had to sing during the episode. And here it is.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Don't do that.

[Ash]

Don't do that.

[Alaina]

I'll punch you. Don't do that.

[Ash]

I won't actually punch you, but I'll metaphorically punch you.

[Alaina]

Yeah. Sa.