in 1994 a 31 year old mother was rushed
into an emergency room in California
with a severely elevated heart rate her
blood pressure was very low and she was
struggling to breathe as soon as she
arrived the doctors and nurses in this
ER who were very accustomed to getting
patients like her got right to work and
as they're treating her one of the
doctors noticed something very strange
about the patient but before this doctor
could tell the other nurses and doctors
about this anomaly there was this loud
thud inside of the trauma room they were
inside of and then before long there was
another thud and another thud and then
someone started screaming and then
minutes later the entire Hospital would
be evacuated but before we get into that
story if you're a fan of the strange
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[Music]
on the night of February 19 1994 a man
in Southern California called 9-1-1
because his girlfriend was struggling to
breathe when the 911 dispatcher picked
up this man's call he was very
distraught and asked them to please send
an ambulance as fast as you possibly can
but despite how upset this man was on
the phone he was not actually surprised
this situation was unfolding his
girlfriend 31 year old Gloria Ramirez
had been diagnosed with terminal
cervical cancer just six weeks earlier
and the doctors had told her that she
likely did not have much time left and
making this even more tragic Gloria had
actually gone into the hospital a few
years earlier with symptoms and signs
that she likely had cancer but the
doctors missed it had they caught it
back then they likely could have saved
her still after receiving her very Grim
diagnosis just a few weeks earlier
Gloria had resolved to fight her cancer
as best as she could it after all she
had a lot to lose Gloria had two young
kids she had a boy and a girl who were 9
and 12 years old respectively and Gloria
absolutely adored them and really
devoted her life to them in the evenings
she would play with them and help them
with their homework and the whole time
she'd be cracking jokes to make them
laugh and smile and then even when
Gloria was not actively parenting her
kids she was always a very positive
presence in their lives she was
optimistic she was happy she was upbeat
and oftentimes she could be found
wandering around with a big smile on her
face singing a religious hymn to herself
so when Gloria got this terrible news
that she had late stage cancer she was
obviously terrified and sad but she was
also very determined to find a way to
survive because she knew her kids still
needed her around the time Gloria was
diagnosed her doctors told her she would
begin radiation treatment for her cancer
at the end of February so she had a few
weeks to wait and so during this waiting
period Gloria found herself spending a
lot of time researching her disease
looking for things she could be doing on
her own right now to make herself feel
better or even potentially increase the
odds of her survival so on February 19th
when Gloria told her boyfriend that she
was starting to have some issues
breathing the boyfriend didn't hesitate
for a second to call 9-1-1 because he
knew firsthand from living with Gloria
that she was desperate to survive and so
any changes in her symptoms needed to be
treated like an emergency it was around
8 PM that night when the ambulance
pulled up in front of Gloria's home
paramedics climbed out they rushed over
to Gloria they put her on a stretcher
they gave her a mask with oxygen and
then they loaded her into the back of
the ambulance and then seconds later
they were flying down the road with
their Sirens blaring while they sped
toward the hospital in Riverside which
is a city about an hour east of Los
Angeles one of of the paramedics on
board the ambulance called ahead to the
Riverside Hospital emergency room to
talk to one of the doctors and the
Doctor Who answered was a 33 year old
woman named Dr Julie gorchinski and she
loved her job she loved the thrill and
excitement and challenge of working in a
big City emergency room and so she takes
this call the paramedics tell her that
they have a patient who has terminal
cancer she's having a hard time
breathing and her heart rate is becoming
very unstable to the point where if it's
not controlled soon it's going to kill
her and they told Julie they would be
there in about five minutes and so Julie
she hangs up the phone and immediately
began preparing for receiving a critical
patient as well as getting trauma Room 1
ready which is where Gloria would be
treated now as bad as this situation was
for Gloria for Julie and the other
nurses and doctors in this emergency
room this was kind of business as usual
they were used to receiving patients
that were in very rough shape and so as
Julie and the rest of her medical team
waited for this ambulance to arrive none
of them were worried that they wouldn't
be able to handle this patient they
thought tonight was going to be as
routine as any other night however they
would be very very wrong the ambulance
ride took about 15 minutes so they
pulled into the Riverside Hospital right
at 8 15 pm and as soon as the ambulance
came to a stop the paramedics jumped out
they ran around to the back they opened
up the back doors they pulled Gloria out
still on her stretcher and they pushed
her as fast as they could through the
doors into the emergency room once
inside Julie and the rest of her team
they took Gloria and they pushed her
left down a hallway into trauma room one
once inside the doctors and nurses
immediately noticed that Gloria's heart
rate was spiking dramatically and her
blood pressure was falling dramatically
so Julie and her team began
administering a standard set of
treatments for someone in this condition
they switched Gloria's oxygen mask she
had been used using on the ambulance
ride for a more powerful one they gave
her painkillers sedatives and drugs to
help steady her heartbeat and at first
the treatments seem to be working
because pretty quickly Gloria's
heartbeat began to level out however it
didn't last soon Gloria's heartbeat was
racing so insanely fast that all of
these alarms were going off on her
heartbeat monitor knowing they had to
act quickly Julie and her team began
removing Gloria's t-shirt in order to
administer electric shocks to her chest
with paddles this is a way for doctors
to kind of reset a patient's heartbeat
as the nurses got the electric paddles
ready they and the rest of the medical
team suddenly noticed two strange things
about Gloria the first was that Gloria
seemed to be emitting the strange
garlicky smell from her mouth the second
was Gloria's skin looked very greasy
however despite the entire medical team
taking note of these two things no one
thought they were significant lots of
patients suddenly are brought into the
ER and very rarely do they have a chance
to shower or brush their teeth
beforehand and so they figured that was
the reason she looked and smelled that
way finally the big electrical paddles
were ready and so the nurses placed them
on either side of Gloria's heart and
then they began sending powerful bolts
of electricity into Gloria's chest while
the nurses worked on Gloria's heart
other members of the medical team needed
to assess Gloria's overall condition and
so to do that they needed to draw her
blood so a nurse took an alcohol wipe
and cleaned a small spot on Gloria's arm
and then she took a syringe and jabbed
it inside of Gloria and began the draw
and as soon as she did this trauma Room
1 filled with a new smell it was a
chemical smell and Julie immediately
noticed it and she looked over at the
nurse doing the blood draw and she said
I think it smells like ammonia in here
and the nurse who was doing the blood
draw kind of scrunched her face up in
disgust and nodded in agreement the
nurse finished the blood draw and then
handed the blood vial to Julie and as
Julie was taking this Blood vial from
the nurse she noticed the nurse looked
suddenly very confused and very
disoriented her eyes were kind of
flickering and she was staring Straight
Ahead like she didn't know where she was
and so Julie she sees this in the nurse
and then she glances down at this Blood
vial in her own hand now and she sees
something she's never seen before the
blood inside this vial Gloria's blood
was full of these small white crystals
but before Julie could tell anybody else
in the room about these strange crystals
in the patient's blood the nurse who had
done the blood draw went from being
Dazed and Confused to collapsing on the
ground luckily another doctor had seen
the nurse starting to collapse and Dove
out and caught her right before her head
hit the ground this collapsed nurse was
very quickly placed on a stretcher and
wheeled out of trauma room one so the
other doctors and nurses is could focus
on Gloria who was obviously dying and so
Julie who is still just standing in the
middle of this room holding this vial of
blood was wondering what the heck just
happened to her colleague and she's also
looking down at these crystals thinking
I've never seen this before what does
this mean and right as she was about to
flag one of the other medical team
members over to look at it Julie began
feeling very nauseous and her head
started spinning and then she felt like
she might collapse and so not wanting to
cause any more distractions for the main
team she quickly placed this vial of
blood on a nearby tray and then she
quickly made her way out of trauma room
one and sat down in a nearby chair and
as soon as she sat down another staff
member at the hospital who had not been
inside of the trauma room ran over to
Julie and asked her you know hey are you
okay and Julie she looked up at the
staff member and she tried to speak but
she couldn't and then her eyes rolled
back into her skull and she slumped
forward and fell to the ground and at
the same moment that Julie was
collapsing outside side of trauma Room 1
inside of the trauma room there was
another thud as another nurse collapsed
and then another and then another and
before long screams were coming out of
trauma room one as people inside who had
not collapsed yet are looking around
seeing their colleagues just dropping
like flies for no reason and so pretty
quickly the call came out over the
hospital intercom to evacuate the
hospital the only people that would stay
back would be a skeleton crew of doctors
and nurses and Gloria because they felt
like moving Gloria outside right now
would likely kill her we need to save
her right now outside the hospital the
parking lot very quickly filled up with
doctors and nurses and other sick people
on stretchers people were screaming and
crying Sirens were blaring and the
medical staff that was still healthy was
running all over the place looking for
supplies to help treat their co-workers
meanwhile back inside of trauma room one
things for Gloria only seem to be
getting worse the four doctors and
nurses those who had stayed back
continued to administer more drugs more
shocks to her chest more oxygen but no
matter what they did her blood pressure
continued to fall and her heartbeat
became fainter and fainter and fainter
finally at 8 50 PM roughly 35 minutes
after Gloria had first been wheeled into
the emergency room she died in that
35-minute window 23 of Riverside
Hospital staff had either collapsed or
become very sick and then collapsed and
many of them had to be hospitalized but
the most affected person by far was
Julie she was in such bad shape by the
time she made it out to the parking lot
that she was actually put on an
ambulance from her hospital and driven
to another hospital where she was
admitted to their Intensive Care Unit
and there a nurse Drew her blood and in
it were little white crystals just like
in Gloria's blood at 11 PM on the same
night all this craziness happened a
hazardous materials team dressed in full
hazmat suits entered the Riverside
Hospital to look for a chemical leak
because that was the running theory that
some sort of leak had happened in the
hospital it had made its way into trauma
room one and that's what had caused
everyone to collapse and get sick but
despite an extensive search the HazMat
team did not find any leaks stumped
authorities decided to just be extra
careful around this hospital and around
Gloria's body until they figured out
what had happened because the fear was
there was some sort of unknown or hidden
toxin either in this building or on or
in glorious body six days after the
incident inside of a special airtight
room while wearing full body protective
suits doctors performed an autopsy on
Gloria and they discovered there was
absolutely nothing toxic inside of her
in fact the autopsy only revealed that
Gloria had died of natural causes her
cancer had caused her heart and her
kidneys to fail meanwhile although the
other medical staff members who had
gotten sick inside of trauma Room 1 had
mostly recovered Julie just could not
seem to get any better she had breathing
problems and pancreatitis which is the
inflammation of the pancreas and it's
very painful and her bones were
literally just starting to die leaving
her in a wheelchair Gloria's family
blamed Riverside Hospital for Gloria's
death insisting that these toxic fumes
that must have been present inside of
trauma Room 1 came from the hospital and
those fumes are responsible for what
happened to the staff and they are
responsible for killing Gloria and in
fact three times in the three years
leading up to Gloria's death Riverside
Hospital had had some issues with
hazardous materials making their way
into the hospital there was sewer gas
that came in from a drain there was a
toxic gas that was created from a
sterilizer that made two people in the
hospital sick and and some of the
hospital's water was found to have algae
in it but the hospital said they checked
their Hospital there was no leak we did
not cause whatever toxic fumes were
inside of trauma room one and so we are
not responsible for what happened to our
staff or what happened to Gloria
Riverside Hospital would be searched
again and again for some sort of leak
also Gloria's home would be searched for
toxic gases and Gloria would be
autopsied two additional times but no
one could find anything toxic anywhere
So eventually California's Department of
Human and Health Services came forward
and said they had the answer to what had
happened inside of trauma room one they
said it was mass sociogenic illness Mass
sociogenic illness is when a group of
people all believe they have the same
illness even though there's nothing
wrong with any of them it's caused by
fear and anxiety basically the state of
California was saying that Julie and the
other 22 staff members who had gotten
sick and collapsed had just pretended
they were making it up as for Gloria
they said she just died from her cancer
now of course this explanation made a
lot of people unhappy like Gloria's
family and of course Julie whose medical
problems were very well documented she
couldn't walk anymore because her bones
were literally dying and so Gloria's
family and Julie said you know what we
think the hospital is covering something
up and we are going to sue but before
they did an obscure lab located just
outside of San Francisco California it
was called the Forensic Science Center
was called in to do yet another
investigation into what happened inside
of Riverside Hospital and what these
scientists found would make history here
is what they discovered after Gloria was
diagnosed with cancer she began
researching not only her disease but
also alternative treatments that she
could do on her own before she began her
radiation treatment at the end of
February and according to the scientists
of Forensic Science Center Gloria must
have begun using a well-known
controversial home remedy to help with
her pain it was called dimethyl
sulfoxide or DMSO for short in the 1960s
DMSO was prescribed to treat pain and
anxiety but as it became more popular it
was discovered that it could cause eye
damage and so the government said you
can't use this anymore but even though
DMSO was no longer available as a
medicine it was still being sold in gel
form inside of hardware stores as a
heavy duty Degreaser and it was this
type of DMSO the gel form that Gloria
had begun rubbing all over her skin head
to toe this was the reason when she
arrived in the emergency room her skin
looked greasy because she was literally
covered head to toe in in this gel it
was also why her breath smelled like
garlic because after DMSO is absorbed
into your bloodstream you emit a sort of
garlicky smell both through your pores
and out of your mouth but the discovery
that Gloria had been using DMSO did not
account for why all these people in the
hospital began collapsing and falling
ill when they were around her it turned
out on the night that Gloria's boyfriend
called 9-1-1 because Gloria was
suffering from breathing problems Gloria
was also suffering from another medical
issue but it was so minor the boyfriend
didn't think to bring it up to the 911
dispatcher or to the paramedics when
they arrived and this secret medical
condition that Gloria had was a urinary
tract infection which is an infection in
any part of the urinary system these are
very common and usually very easy to
treat but what nobody realized was that
because Gloria had this infection her
body was not flushing out the DMSO
chemicals that had seeped inside of it
from all this gel on her skin still even
very large amounts of DMSO chemicals
inside of your body or on your skin is
not enough to cause any harm to you or
people around you the danger started
when the EMTs in the ambulance put that
oxygen mask on Gloria's face as they
transported her to the hospital suddenly
there was this new chemical being
introduced into Gloria's body oxygen and
the scientists from the Forensic Science
Center said this new chemical oxygen
began interacting with the DMSO
chemicals trapped inside of Gloria's
body and together they formed a new
chemical now if Gloria had gotten to the
hospital and responded more positively
to the treatments and medicines that the
doctors and nurses at the ER gave her
then Julie and the rest of the staff
inside of that hospital would never have
gotten sick for that had to happen for
that catastrophe to play out inside of
that hospital two very specific things
had to happen in the correct order and
they did first there was the electric
shocks when the medical team was pumping
electrical shocks into Gloria's chest
the scientists from the Forensic Science
Center say those charges of electricity
interacted with that new chemical that
had been created inside of Gloria and it
changed this new chemical again and this
time the change made the chemical deadly
it became what's known as dimethyl
sulfate which was used as a chemical
weapon in World War one once Gloria
received those shocks to her chest her
body basically became a canister of
nerve gas and then one of the nurses
Drew Gloria's blood which was the second
event that ultimately set off the
catastrophe emergency rooms are
typically kept fairly cold roughly 66
degrees Fahrenheit but when this new
deadly chemical was created inside of
Gloria it was still inside of her body
where it was warm and for dimethyl
sulfate when it is warm it's unstable
and much less dangerous but when that
nurse Drew Gloria's blood inside of the
blood was the deadly chemical and now it
was no longer in Gloria it was in this
cool 66 degree room and so it began to
stabilize and started producing those
little white crystals inside of the
blood vial that Julie saw and as it
stabilized it turned into a gas and it
filled the room and the staff began to
breathe it in the scientists from the
Forensic Science Center do not think
that this Mass poisoning event
contributed to Gloria's death meaning
Gloria did really die from her cancer
Gloria's family has denied that Gloria
ever used DMSO and they still insist
that the hospital was responsible for
Gloria's death the hospital would
ultimately pay eight hundred thousand
dollars in settlement money to Gloria's
family but the hospital would never
admit that they did anything wrong
Julie's lawsuit against the hospital was
ultimately dismissed and her bones never
really recovered from the damage that
was done to them despite eight surgeries
to try to fix them however Julie would
eventually go back to being a practicing
doctor at another hospital and she has
said the ordeal she went through inside
of trauma room one at Riverside Hospital
actually made her a better doctor
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