top of page
Tales of the twisted
podcast
Gloria Ramirez: The Toxic Woman Mystery
Episode Title:
Full Transcript
Welcome to Tales of the Twisted.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
Each episode unearths a real story where truth proves more unsettling than fiction.
This episode is the toxic woman — the death of Gloria Ramirez.
It’s February 19th, 1994. Riverside, California.
An ambulance speeds through the night, red lights cutting through the fog.
Inside lies 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez, a mother of two, struggling to breathe, trembling, fading fast.
Paramedics rush her into the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital. She’s pale, disoriented, her heartbeat erratic.
The medical team moves fast — oxygen, IV fluids, defibrillator pads.
And then, things take a turn no one could have imagined.
As a nurse leans close to adjust Gloria’s mask, she notices something strange:
An oily sheen glistening across Gloria’s skin… and a faint fruity chemical odor filling the air.
It’s sweet at first, then sharp — like garlic and ammonia.
The team works through it, but as one nurse draws blood from Gloria’s arm, she pauses.
The syringe fills with blood that smells overwhelmingly of ammonia…
And inside the tube, tiny white crystals shimmer in the light.
Seconds later, that same nurse collapses.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
The emergency room descends into chaos.
Staff stumble into the hallway — coughing, dizzy, eyes watering.
One technician gasps for air and drops to the floor.
A doctor shouts for an evacuation.
The ER is cleared within minutes — only a few remain, masked and trembling, trying desperately to save Gloria’s life.
At 8:50 p.m., after nearly an hour of frantic effort, Gloria Ramirez is pronounced dead.
Her official cause of death: complications from cervical cancer.
But that explanation satisfied no one.
Because whatever surrounded her body that night made at least 23 people sick — six so severely they were hospitalized.
The press would later call her: **The Toxic Woman.**
In the hours that followed, panic spread through the hospital.
Hazmat crews sealed off the emergency department.
Gloria’s body was placed in an airtight coffin.
Even the coroner refused to touch her for over ten hours.
When the autopsy was finally performed, it had to be done under strict containment protocols — double suits, filtered air, full decontamination afterward.
Yet when the toxicologists finished, they found… nothing.
No cyanide.
No nerve gas.
No poison.
No explanation.
The story baffled scientists, terrified hospital workers, and haunted everyone who had been in that ER.
Weeks later, investigators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed a theory.
They discovered traces of **dimethyl sulfone** in Gloria’s blood — a byproduct of **DMSO**, a chemical once sold as a pain reliever.
Rumors said Gloria used DMSO cream in her final days to ease the pain of her cancer.
Under the intense oxygen and electric shocks in the ER, that compound *might* have transformed into a deadly vapor: **dimethyl sulfate.**
A toxic gas capable of causing the exact symptoms seen that night — fainting, nausea, temporary paralysis.
It fit perfectly… except scientists couldn’t replicate it.
The transformation required conditions that didn’t match the ER that night.
So the mystery endures.
Gloria’s family never accepted the official explanation.
They believed something more sinister happened — perhaps a cover-up, perhaps an accident buried by bureaucracy.
Her husband died not long after.
Her children grew up with questions that would never be answered.
Gloria Ramirez’s death remains officially unexplained — a medical mystery that continues to defy science and reason.
A woman who went to the hospital for help… and became one of the strangest, most chilling cases in modern history.
You've been listening to Tales of the Twisted.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
If this story gave you chills, follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with someone who loves the strange and unexplained — because sometimes the truth really *is* the most twisted story of all.
Thanks for listening.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
Each episode unearths a real story where truth proves more unsettling than fiction.
This episode is the toxic woman — the death of Gloria Ramirez.
It’s February 19th, 1994. Riverside, California.
An ambulance speeds through the night, red lights cutting through the fog.
Inside lies 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez, a mother of two, struggling to breathe, trembling, fading fast.
Paramedics rush her into the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital. She’s pale, disoriented, her heartbeat erratic.
The medical team moves fast — oxygen, IV fluids, defibrillator pads.
And then, things take a turn no one could have imagined.
As a nurse leans close to adjust Gloria’s mask, she notices something strange:
An oily sheen glistening across Gloria’s skin… and a faint fruity chemical odor filling the air.
It’s sweet at first, then sharp — like garlic and ammonia.
The team works through it, but as one nurse draws blood from Gloria’s arm, she pauses.
The syringe fills with blood that smells overwhelmingly of ammonia…
And inside the tube, tiny white crystals shimmer in the light.
Seconds later, that same nurse collapses.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
The emergency room descends into chaos.
Staff stumble into the hallway — coughing, dizzy, eyes watering.
One technician gasps for air and drops to the floor.
A doctor shouts for an evacuation.
The ER is cleared within minutes — only a few remain, masked and trembling, trying desperately to save Gloria’s life.
At 8:50 p.m., after nearly an hour of frantic effort, Gloria Ramirez is pronounced dead.
Her official cause of death: complications from cervical cancer.
But that explanation satisfied no one.
Because whatever surrounded her body that night made at least 23 people sick — six so severely they were hospitalized.
The press would later call her: **The Toxic Woman.**
In the hours that followed, panic spread through the hospital.
Hazmat crews sealed off the emergency department.
Gloria’s body was placed in an airtight coffin.
Even the coroner refused to touch her for over ten hours.
When the autopsy was finally performed, it had to be done under strict containment protocols — double suits, filtered air, full decontamination afterward.
Yet when the toxicologists finished, they found… nothing.
No cyanide.
No nerve gas.
No poison.
No explanation.
The story baffled scientists, terrified hospital workers, and haunted everyone who had been in that ER.
Weeks later, investigators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed a theory.
They discovered traces of **dimethyl sulfone** in Gloria’s blood — a byproduct of **DMSO**, a chemical once sold as a pain reliever.
Rumors said Gloria used DMSO cream in her final days to ease the pain of her cancer.
Under the intense oxygen and electric shocks in the ER, that compound *might* have transformed into a deadly vapor: **dimethyl sulfate.**
A toxic gas capable of causing the exact symptoms seen that night — fainting, nausea, temporary paralysis.
It fit perfectly… except scientists couldn’t replicate it.
The transformation required conditions that didn’t match the ER that night.
So the mystery endures.
Gloria’s family never accepted the official explanation.
They believed something more sinister happened — perhaps a cover-up, perhaps an accident buried by bureaucracy.
Her husband died not long after.
Her children grew up with questions that would never be answered.
Gloria Ramirez’s death remains officially unexplained — a medical mystery that continues to defy science and reason.
A woman who went to the hospital for help… and became one of the strangest, most chilling cases in modern history.
You've been listening to Tales of the Twisted.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
If this story gave you chills, follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with someone who loves the strange and unexplained — because sometimes the truth really *is* the most twisted story of all.
Thanks for listening.
bottom of page