Followup on medical patients emitting enough fumes to sicken hospital workers?

February 22, 2008 2:51 PM

Whatever happened to people emitting enough toxic fumes from their bodies to clear an operating or emergency room? I remember seeing news reports on this multiple times in the 1990s, but haven't heard anything since.

I recall at least two different cases where people were taken into operating rooms, but fumes from the body sickened hospital workers and cleared the operating/emergency rooms.

The only thing I can find is this article, which provides no followup, but does suggest that gardening chemicals had to do with the issue.

So my question is twofold:

1. Whatever happened to these people? I assume they died, but what was the cause of the fumes?

2. Was this something that only really occured in the 1990s, or have we not been hearing about it since because the story ceased to be interesting?

Additionally, I remember hearing bits and pieces about people who's blood or internal fluids had been crystallized, but I may just be remembering scenes from the Andromeda Strain.

posted by krisak to health & fitness (6 comments total)

Here's a case from 1994 in New York that apparently was never solved.

On a related note: there was an episode of Law and Order about this - something to do with an illegal cancer treatment.
posted by chez shoes at 3:26 PM on February 22, 2008

Doesn't fully answer your questions, but here's a Straight Dope article on the subject from 1996.
posted by googly at 3:26 PM on February 22, 2008

Also, I remember an episode of CSI or Law & Order about something like this.
posted by googly at 3:27 PM on February 22, 2008

It was also on Grey's Anatomy. I know that doesn't help much but they do have medical staff who supply the main ideas for the stories. The woman on that show had taken some OTC drug, I think it was for weight loss, and the "herbs" in it made her blood toxic when it mixed with oxygen.
posted by jesirose at 3:49 PM on February 22, 2008

Wikipedia Article about Gloria Ramirez, the woman who sickened a whole ER with her ammonia-like fumes.
A somewhat conspiracy-laden story about her from the Mind Control Forums
Lastly, a couple of articles at the NYTimes about the topic.
posted by lockle at 4:26 PM on February 22, 2008

When cases such as these are thoroughly and fully investigated, they always turn out to be episodes of mass hysteria or mass psychosis or whatever the latest trendy phrase is for mass psychogenic illness.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:52 PM on February 23, 2008