The World’s Weirdest People: ‘Toxic Lady’ Gloria Ramirez
Unlike the others on this list, Gloria Ramirez had a fairly typical life. It was her death that made her one of history’s weirdest people.
On the evening of Feb. 19, 1994, the 31-year-old California woman was rushed to the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital outside of Los Angeles. She had been diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer, and her boyfriend reported that she’d been experiencing nausea, vomiting, heart palpitations, and difficulty breathing all day.
As doctors and nurses worked to save Ramirez, they noticed what appeared to be oil on her body and a strange, garlicky odor coming from her mouth. When one nurse drew Ramirez’s blood, she smelled ammonia. She soon felt a burning sensation and fainted.
YouTubeGloria Ramirez became known as the “Toxic Lady” following the bizarre circumstances surrounding her death.
The nurse who took over for her had a similar experience. While treating Ramirez, she started feeling nauseous and lightheaded before fainting as well. A third nurse passed out shortly after.
All of the patients were evacuated from the emergency room, and by the time Ramirez was declared dead 30 minutes later, 23 hospital workers had fallen ill. Five of them needed to be hospitalized themselves.
Gloria Ramirez was dubbed the “Toxic Lady” by the media, but a subsequent investigation found that the doctors and nurses who had become sick while caring for her had likely suffered from a case of mass hysteria.
Ramirez may have been treating her pain at home with dimethyl sulfoxide, which can taste similar to garlic and may have contributed to the odor on Ramirez’s breath. If she applied it topically, it could have left the oily sheen on her skin. What’s more, Ramirez’s official cause of death was kidney failure related to her cancer, hence the smell of ammonia.
One theory claims that an unfortunate combination of the dimethyl sulfoxide, supplementary oxygen, and the electric shocks administered during defibrillation may have caused the hospital staff to be exposed to toxic sulfuric acid, but other chemists have dismissed this as impossible.
Either way, the circumstances surrounding Gloria Ramirez’s death have gone down as one of history’s weirdest medical mysteries.
Anneliese Michel, The German Woman Who Inspired The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
Anneliese Michel was born into a Roman Catholic family in West Germany in 1952, and the first 16 years of her life were relatively normal. Then, in 1968, she had a seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy, depression, and psychosis.
Wikimedia CommonsAnneliese Michel before she underwent dozens of exorcisms.
By the time she had her third seizure in 1970, Michel was seeing “Devil faces,” and she soon started hearing voices telling her that she would “rot in Hell.” She also reportedly couldn’t walk past religious objects, like crucifixes, without feeling a burning sensation.
Michel’s family became convinced that she was possessed. They started seeking a priest who would perform an exorcism on their daughter, but many refused. Then, in September 1975, Father Arnold Renz and Father Ernest Alt carried out the first of 67 exorcisms on Anneliese Michel.
Over the next 10 months, the priests exorcised Michel once or twice a week in sessions lasting up to four hours each. By the following summer, the young woman had begun to wither away and refused to eat or drink. Her weakened knees broke from kneeling to the ground in prayer so often. Michel died from malnutrition and dehydration on July 1, 1976, at age 23. Her parents and the two priests were convicted of negligent homicide.
That wasn’t the end of Michel’s story, though. The 2005 horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which was inspired by her case, has terrified audiences around the world, making Anneliese Michel one of history’s eeriest and weirdest people.
