The only thing unusual about her was her age, recalls Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who was assisting in the trauma room that night. You have successfully joined our subscriber list. Twenty-three people eventually reported symptoms. Jeannie, George, and four of the children escaped. Livermore, situated about 60 miles east of San Francisco, is rooted in the nuclear arms buildup that started shortly after World War II. Several microscopic owl feathers were found in Kathleens hair. One member named Yuri Yudin turned back early because of joint pain. There were also injuries on the back of her head consistent with blunt force, and the coroner stated that he believed she had not died from a fall, but may have been beaten. Boxed in groups of 1,000. The forensic center took up the Ramirez case in early March, when a Sacramento criminologist put the Riverside Coroners Office in touch with the centers deputy director, Pat Grant. Grant mistook dimethyl sulfone for dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO the only difference between the two chemicals is that DMSO has one oxygen atom, not two. Several organic chemists have scoffed at the step-by-step change of DMSO into airborne dimethyl sulfate. By this time Gorchynski had filed a lawsuit against Riverside General Hospital, the coroners office, and several others, seeking $6 million in damages. She had been admitted to the emergency department while suffering from late-stage cervical cancer. Known as the Oakville blobs, this transparent jelly fell in tiny droplets half the size of rice grains over a period of three weeks and reportedly sickened local people and animals with a flu-like illness. Top 10 Creepy Mysteries From The American South. [2], Manila paper was originally made out of old Manila hemp ropes which were extensively used on ships, having replaced true hemp. The tent was sliced open from the inside. As if the situation wasnt strange enough already, suddenly, one after the other, nurses in the room started to faint. [2][3] A skeleton crew stayed behind to stabilize Ramirez. On April 20, 1994ten weeks after her deathRamirez was buried at Olivewood Memorial Park in Riverside. They emerged 90 minutes later with samples of blood and tissue along with air from the body bag and aluminum crate holding the body. The crime scene quickly puzzled authorities. Broken down by the liver, dimethyl sulfone has a half-life in the body of less than three days, so healthy people never have measurable amounts in their system. At the time he died, Rivera seemed to be happily married and pursuing his dream of becoming a screenwriter. The investigation into her death, Hill said, was finished. The American government stated that they believed Cuba was responsible for the events. Matching Colors Simply White 2143-70 Add to Cart Shopping List She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident who noticed unusual manila-colored particles floating in the blood an observation echoed by Humberto Ochoa, the doctor in charge of the emergency room, who was helping treat Ramirez. The crystals of dimethyl sulfone turned into dimethyl sulfate as well and vanished from sight. He also sought medical attention immediately, which made a suicide attempt even more unlikely. DMSO2 is known to crystallize at room temperature, and crystals were observed in some of Ramirez's drawn blood. The nurse who drew the blood quickly fainted, and soon two other people in the room passed out. Stansberry was being investigated for financial crimes at the time of Riveras death and placed a gag order on his employees during the investigation. His office has received dozens of calls from worried women being treated with DMSO for interstitial cystitis. We had a meeting on the very last day of the month to determine our exact game plan, says Brian Andresen, the centers director. They took a blood sample and saw manila-colored particles floating in it. They stripped off her shirt and pressed padded electrodes against her chest; at that point several people saw an oily sheen covering Ramirezs body, and some noticed a fruity, garlicky odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. About 8:15 in the evening on February 19, 1994, paramedics wheeled a young woman into the emergency room of General Hospital in the southern California city of Riverside. Nor has its use been limited to athletes. They dissolved the compound in a transparent liquid called Ringers solution, which is basically all the ingredients of blood minus red blood cells. Furthermore, many other known effects of dimethyl sulfate usually take several hours to hit, and yet the fainting spells and other symptoms at the hospital began to occur minutes after the supposed exposure. Add one oxygen atom to DMSO and you get dimethyl sulfone you change one solvent to another. I just tell them the dimethyl sulfate theory is a chemical impossibility, says Jacob. She was taking shallow, rapid breaths. Alarmed by the growing cult of DMSO users, the FDA issued a warning to physicians in 1980: Counsel patients against purchasing dmso of unknown quality and medicating themselves. The clothes of whoever could have been exposed were removed into plastic bags. Catch her! They also noticed strange manila-colored particles floating in the blood. "colored particle" in Chinese SentencesMobile She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident, who noticed manila-colored particlesfloating in the blood. Since DMSO can react with oxygen and form dimethyl sulfone, Grant began to wonder what other compounds might be formed when oxygen is added to the chemical. You can color emitted particles with a 2D or 3D texture. Of the 20 types of symptoms reported by the staff, from the fainting to the convulsions to Gorchynskis hepatitis, only one nausea and vomiting is not a symptom of dimethyl sulfate exposure. Gluons are also colored . The team was supposed to come back by February 12th, and a search party of their classmates and teachers were sent out to look for them on the 20th. He and his fiance were both spending the winter at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station with forty-eight other crewmates. But the strangest theory is a supernatural idea. Our colored particles are prepared by polymerizing styrene in oil soluble dye solution in styrene. In 2018, the Canadian government found evidence of brain damage in their diplomats and pulled them from the country as well. The incident was initially considered to be a case of mass hysteria. Andresen recalls some anxious questioning by the coroners office in hopes of finding a smoking gun, but he insisted that it appeared Ramirez had simply taken a lot of codeine and Tylenol, which in large, sustained doses can damage the liver. One of the harshest critics of the Livermore theory is a scientist who did much of the clinical research on DMSO in the early 1960s. In January of 1959, ten college students decided to go on a hiking trip in the Ural Mountains of the Soviet Union. DMSO is sold in a gel form at hardware stores as a heavy-duty degreaser, and it has long been a folk remedy among athletes for achy muscles and joints. Rather, the Livermore team thought the more likely event was that Ramirez had rubbed DMSO on herself to relieve the pain from her cancer. Something wasn't right with the patient and it had nothing to do with heart failure. Whatever the true reason, Overtoun Bridge now has signs installed warning owners to keep their pets on leashes during their walks. Ochoa ordered the staff to evacuate all emergency room patients to the parking lot outside the hospital. Following that, several other people, including staff, started saying they felt ill and the staff was ordered to evacuate the emergency room to the hospitals parking lot. Andresen laid out a paper with the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry results, a graph with spikes similar to earthquake readings on a seismograph, and pointed at the dimethyl sulfone peak. Tag size: 6 1/4" x 3 1/8". Like many other chemicals, dimethyl sulfate has a good side and a bad side. Because of concern that the stricken staff had been felled by a noxious chemical, they were stripped down to their underwear, and their clothes were bundled into plastic bags. The Livermore scientists do offer a cautionary note in their report, which recommends that hospitals be made aware of the possible consequences of such a chemical reaction occurring in their emergency rooms. Gorchynski continued to experience tremors and apnea. A second peculiar find was nicotinamide a compound, like phosgene, with a dual personality. As the syringe filled, Kane noticed a chemical smell to the blood. Other precursors of dimethyl sulfate, like sulfur-bearing amino acids, probably couldnt produce enough of the chemical to wreak so much havoc. Acoustic or sonic weapons have been in development since at least the 1990s and certain types have been used around the world to disperse crowds and protesters. It takes a really damn potent toxin to do all that, says Sheldon Wagner, a clinical toxicologist at Oregon State University. However, a shopkeeper saw her the day of her disappearance and reported that she seemed happy and calm, picking up souvenirs for her family. Two months after Ramirez died, her badly decomposed body was released for an independent autopsy and burial. It is sold in gel form at hardware stores and said to have agarlic-like smell, which explains the odor and greasiness of her chest. That could have aggravated the buildup of dimethyl sulfone by preventing it from being flushed out of her system.). The nurse who replaced her noted that Gloria's blood contained manila-colored particles. In real blood those crystals might have appeared manila-colored. The plan they developed was straightforward: analyze the compounds, both organic and inorganic, in the blood, bile, and tissues from Ramirezs organs, including her heart, liver, lungs, brain, and kidneys. Welch, meanwhile, forced air into Ramirezs lungs with an Ambu-bag, a football-size rubber bladder connected to a plastic mask thats placed over the patients nose and mouth, serving as a sanitary alternative to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Yuri Yudin stated that he believed there was an explosion, possibly from a weapons test, and cover-up by the Soviet military. When oxygen was added, it could have become dimethyl sulfone, forming the crystals in Ramirezs blood. Shortly after that, three of the medics began feeling sick and fainted one after the other. Welch sniffed the syringe and smelled something, too: I thought it would smell like chemotherapy, the way the blood smells putrid when people are taking some of those drugs. 1 part Manila Colored Inventory Tag - Plain. The material has a garlic smell and oily sheen. This is likely to occur again DMSO is not uncommon, asserts Barry Taylor, a microbiologist at Loma Linda University School of Medicine who has followed the case closely. An emergency room entrance. But the most interesting theory is also the most cartoonish. And despite their desire to press forward, they had to put the Ramirez case on the back burner for the rest of September. Pine needles and clumps of her own hair were found in Kathleens hands, which also point to a potential entanglement. Fearing that a DMSO drug might ruin peoples eyesight, the Food and Drug Administration ordered companies to cease clinical trials of the drug in 1965. Gorchynski had to spend two weeks in intensive care and use crutches for two months. It took six months before the body could be removed and autopsied, when it was determined that Marks had died of menthol poisoning. The only remaining theory for many people is murder, and unlike most murders, this one has a very specific number of suspects. This color has an approximate wavelength of 580.86 nm. Multiple calls to the fire department did not get through. Her blood smelled like ammonia and there were manila-colored particles floating in her blood. Dimethyl sulfate doesnt vaporize easily the Merck Index lists its boiling point as 370 degrees. But other factors that correlated with severe symptoms didnt seem to match a scenario in which fumes had been released: the survey found that those afflicted tended to be women rather than men, as well as people who had skipped dinner that evening rather than those who had a full stomach. Meanwhile, back in trauma one, Welch became the third to succumb. Soon her situation got worse and had to be laid out on a gurney. [6] In Houck and Siegel's textbook, the authors state that, although some weaknesses exist, the postulated scenario is "the most scientific explanation to date" and that "beyond this theory, no credible explanation has ever been offered for the strange case of Gloria Ramirez. This hunting desire could combine with the layout of the bridge and the surrounding plant life to give the appearance of solid ground, confusing the animals into thinking there is no drop off. The Toxic Lady The health departments report triggered another flurry of news reports; these featured Gorchynski and her lawyer, physician Russell Kussman, who denounced the mass hysteria conclusion. [8][9] The first paper was technically detailed and contained two potential chemical reaction mechanisms that may possibly have formed dimethyl sulfate from dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethyl sulfone precursors. Sooez 18 Pack Plastic File Folders Colored with Sticky Labels, Letter Size Colored File Folders with Erasable 1/3-Cut Tab, Stronger Than Manila File Folder, Perfect for Organization, Assorted Color. It was later discovered that she was being treated for bipolar disorder, but had it under control for several years. But now add two oxygen atoms to dimethyl sulfone which in chemical notation is written (CH3)2SO2 and you get dimethyl sulfate, (CH3)2SO4, a truly nasty chemical. If theres one place where you dont want to have a medical emergency, its the remote tundra of the South Pole. In 1997, residents of Oakville, Washington were shocked by a strange gelatinous material falling from the sky. Dubbed the toxic lady, the hospital staff who were exposed to her body became ill and even had to be hospitalized. Taking no chances, they put on airtight moon suits and disappeared into a sealed examining chamber to work on the body. Colored particles are bound together by the appropriately named gluons. In the RGB color model #e7c9a9 is comprised of 90.59% red, 78.82% green and 66.27% blue. This urban legend, similar to the Bloody Mary mirror game, involves pressing elevator buttons in a certain order to travel to a different dimension. And thats when the frenetic yet orderly routine of the emergency room began to break down. About 10 for 9 P.M, Ramirez was pronounced dead from kidney failure related to cancer. Manila 2158-50 | Benjamin Moore Manila 2158-50 A peach-tinged beige that captures the iconic buff tone of manila paper. Manila paper is buff-colored and the fibers of the paper are usually visible to the naked eye. Personal removed her immediately, but a few moments later Dr. Gorchynski felt ill. Instead, Welch says, it smelled like ammonia. The long-term effects of these kinds of devices remain unknown. Ramirezs seemingly average life took its unusual turn on Feb. 19, 1994, when she was taken to General Hospital in Riverside, Calif. after she experienced a rapid heart rate, a drop in blood pressure, and was unable to form coherent sentences. But the theory has provoked a backlash from other scientists. Reich doubts that dimethyl sulfone would split apart in the human bodys relatively cool environment. Colored Polystyrene Particles. But there was another possible murderer considered: an owl. There was not yet a sufficient amount of nerve gas to harm the paramedics. When Susan Kane drew blood at the hospital, however, the cool temperature had slowed the breakdown of the dimethyl sulfate. We just wanted the coroners offices opinion, and they took it and said, This is the answer. It caught us way off guard. In one, Ramirez spread a cream on her skin that contained phencyclidine (better known as PCP, or angel dust) dissolved in a DMSO carrier base (a common way to take the drug). Several hikers were only in their underwear. Despite the extensive injuries to his body, Riveras glasses and cellphone were found next to him undamaged. Overall, 23 people became ill and five were hospitalized. Now they were under the gun to finish a technical report to the organization paying their bills the U.S. Department of Energy, Livermores parent agency by September 30. However, a former hotel employee endorsed the theory and said that helicopters were known to fly low over the hotel, despite the airspace rules. [5], The possible chemical explanation for this incident by Patrick M. Grant of the Livermore Forensic Science Center is beginning to appear in basic forensic science textbooks. 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