Symptoms

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast features three medical horror stories.

[3] The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[4] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[5] The first story you'll hear is called Green Needles, and it's about a man who went to the emergency room with extreme.

[6] chest pains.

[7] The second story you'll hear is called Midnight Stroll, and the idea that this actually happens to people is truly terrifying, both for them and the people near them.

[8] And the third and final story you'll hear is called Trauma Room One, and it's about a woman who arrived at a hospital, and just seconds later, the entire hospital was evacuated.

[9] But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've Come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[10] So, if that's of interest to you, please sneak in to the Amazon Music Follow Button's house and set all of their clocks back one hour.

[11] Okay, let's get into our first story called Green Needles.

[12] I'm Dan Tversky.

[13] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[14] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[15] What's the answer?

[16] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[17] Hysterical.

[18] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[19] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondry Plus.

[20] A 28 -year -old Russian man named Artem Siddorkin started having severe chest pains.

[21] And at first, he tried to ignore it, but it got so bad he could barely stand up, and then he began coughing up blood.

[22] And so finally, he went to the emergency room.

[23] When he got there, even before the doctors examined him or gave him an x -ray, just based on the way he presented to them being pale in the way.

[24] the face and hunched over and very sick -looking, they assumed this must be something very serious.

[25] So that day, they brought Mr. Sidorkan in for an examination, and after talking to him and hearing about all of his symptoms and just looking at him, the assumption was he probably has a tumor in his lungs.

[26] And so they sent him in for an x -ray, and afterwards the radiologist looked at the x -ray and confirmed that, yep, there is a mass growing inside of your lungs.

[27] And so before they went to just start removing huge pieces of his lung, they told him that they would like to do a biopsy, where they remove a small piece of the tissue and test it to see if it's cancerous or not.

[28] And so Mr. Sidorkin is terrified, but he says, okay, he schedules his surgery.

[29] He goes in a couple days later, and the surgeon pulls out a piece of his lung tissue, and as it's sitting on the tray, he looks down at the tissue, the surgeon does.

[30] Then he realizes there is something hidden inside of the tissue, as if the tissue was like an envelope holding something inside of it.

[31] And so he opened it up, and there, growing on the side of his lung was a small fir tree.

[32] It was five centimeters long, it was green, it looked very lively, it was just a thriving little tree.

[33] The doctors believed Mr. Siddorkin, who was a botanist, had inhaled a seed of a fir tree, and it got lodged inside of his lung tissue.

[34] And then as it grew, its pine needles began piercing his blood capillaries, causing him to cough up blood.

[35] After the discovery of what was inside of his lung, a spokeswoman for the Royal Botanic Gardens in London said that it is possible for a seed to germany.

[36] inside of the dark, damp conditions inside of a lung, but it is unbelievably bizarre.

[37] When doctors informed Mr. Siddorkin that he did not have cancer, he had a tree.

[38] Mr. Sidorkin was shocked, and he said, I never got the sense that there was a tree growing inside of me, but more than shocked, he was just relieved that he was cancer -free.

[39] There is a picture of this tree inside of his lung tissue, but it's a bit graphic, so if you want to see it, go ahead and Google, tree and lung, and I'm sure you'll find it.

[40] Our next story is called Midnight Stroll.

[41] In 1887, 35 -year -old Robert Ledrew was a very talented detective working in Paris, France.

[42] He was so talented that periodically he would get called upon by other police departments around the country to help them solve their most difficult cases.

[43] And so that year, there was this coastal town in northern France that had the string of sailors that went missing, and nobody had the slightest idea what had happened to them.

[44] And so naturally, Robert was called in to investigate.

[45] The night Robert arrived in this town, it was very late and Robert was tired, so he went straight to his hotel and he went to bed.

[46] The following morning, he got up and he went straight to the local police department to meet the local officers that he would be working with on this investigation.

[47] But when he got there, he was told that the missing sailors case had been lowered in priority because during the night, a murder had been committed down on their beach.

[48] And so that was now their main focus.

[49] And so they apologized to Robert and said, you know, I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing.

[50] But since you're here, do you want to help us in this beach murder investigation?

[51] And Robert said, sure.

[52] The victim was a middle -aged man named Andre Monet who owned a dress shop in Paris, France.

[53] He had recently moved to this coastal town to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

[54] When his body was discovered early that morning, it was quickly determined he had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, where the bullet actually went clear through him out the other side, but they hadn't found the bullet.

[55] There were no suspects, there were no leads, there was no clear motive.

[56] However, they were able to rule out robbery because there was still money in Andre's pockets.

[57] And so Robert and the other local officers left the police station and made their way down to the beach where they began examining the area where Andre had been found.

[58] The local officers focused on looking for the bullet, while Robert decided to walk a little ways down the beach to see if there was any evidence that had been overlooked, in the initial search.

[59] And after only walking a very short distance, Robert noticed some barely visible footprints that appeared to pass right by where Andre's body had been found.

[60] And these footprints, they continued past that area and then up a flight of stairs up onto the road where they disappeared.

[61] Robert called over the other officers and told them to make plaster casts of these footprints so he could analyze them.

[62] What that meant is the officers would literally just pour liquid plaster inside of these prints, and then when they dried, they would pull that plaster out, and it would literally be a 3D model of the foot that had made the prints.

[63] And so as the officers are working on these casts, Robert says to one of the officers that these prints looked really odd to him, like they were familiar in some way, but he just couldn't place where he had seen them before.

[64] Less than an hour later, when the plaster had dried, the officers pulled them out and they handed them to Robert, and as soon as Robert looked at them, he physically reacted to what he was seeing.

[65] It was like he was disappointed.

[66] And then without saying anything, he just walked down the beach with these plaster casts until he got to the secluded area where he sat down.

[67] And he sat there for hours and hours, just staring at the plaster casts, seemingly unaffected by the sun that was blazing down on him the whole time, and the tide that was very quickly creeping up on him.

[68] The local officers who were watching this, they didn't know anything about Robert.

[69] All they knew is his reputation, which is he is this totally legendary detective.

[70] and so they didn't dare question his methods, even though this seemed really odd what he was doing.

[71] Finally, by mid -afternoon, Robert Wood put the cask down, he would stand up, and he would walk back over to the mystified local officers.

[72] And when he walked up to them, he would say, there's no reason to stay at the beach any longer or interview any more witnesses, I think I've solved the case.

[73] But then instead of elaborating, he just turned around and walked up off the beach and headed back for his hotel.

[74] The local officers just looked at each other and shrugged and they left too.

[75] Early the next day, the bullet that had killed Andre Monet was found on the beach.

[76] And so when Robert showed up to the beach, the chief of police handed him this bullet in an effort to help him continue the investigation.

[77] And as soon as Robert looked at it, he sighed and said, okay, now I know for sure what happened.

[78] And then Robert proceeded to break down the murder.

[79] He said the killer woke up in the middle of the night on the night that Andre was killed, and he got out at this bed, he put on his clothes, and then he headed down to the beach.

[80] There, he encountered Andre Monet, a man he didn't know who was most likely out for a midnight stroll as well.

[81] The two men struck up a friendly conversation, but at some point it turned into some sort of quarrel, at which point the killer drew his pistol, shot Andre in the chest, and then fled the scene.

[82] Robert told the local police chief that the reason he knew all these details is because he had been the killer.

[83] He killed Andre Monet.

[84] But he didn't do it on purpose, and he didn't remember, because he killed Andre Monet while he was sleepwalking.

[85] He told the chief, when he was given those plaster casts of those footprints, he knew immediately why he thought those prints looked so familiar.

[86] Because as soon as he looked at the casts, he could tell whoever had made the prince was missing a toe, and as it happened, Robert was missing a toe.

[87] So those prints looked exactly like his footprints.

[88] And that morning when he had woken up in his hotel room before even going down to the beach, he had noticed that his shoes and his socks, which were next to his bed, were sandy and damp.

[89] And he thought that was so strange because he couldn't remember how they got that way, but he was too busy to investigate.

[90] And that night, after he had sat all day looking at the casts and then left the beach leaving the local police officers totally mystified, he had gone back to his room, and the first thing he did was get his revolver out from under his pillow, and he discovered that one bullet was missing, and he always kept his revolver fully loaded.

[91] And so he spent the rest of the night trying to convince himself that this was just one big coincidence, but the following morning, when he was given that bullet, he knew immediately that this was not a coincidence.

[92] The bullet that had killed Andre Monet was the same type of ammunition that he loaded his revolver with, and so he had to be the killer.

[93] He had effectively caught himself.

[94] The police were totally shocked and did not, believe this at first.

[95] More specifically, they didn't want to believe that Robert, their star detective, was behind this horrible homicide.

[96] But eventually, after examining all the evidence, they agreed he had to be the killer.

[97] But to test whether this really was sleepwalking and not some elaborate cover -up by Robert, they decided to conduct an experiment.

[98] Robert, who was fully cooperative with the investigation, was told to sleep in this jail cell where he would be monitored 24 -7 by armed guards and in this cell with him would be a revolver loaded with blank rounds.

[99] He was told to keep it under his pillow.

[100] For the first couple of days, nothing happened.

[101] Robert never touched the revolver during the day or when he was asleep.

[102] But about a week into this experiment, Robert suddenly woke up in the middle of the night in this trance -like state.

[103] He reached under his pillow, pulled out the revolver, and began firing at the guards right outside of the cell.

[104] And so this convinced the police that Robert had been telling the truth about what happened to Andre Moses.

[105] He really had killed him while he was sleepwalking.

[106] A decision was made not to prosecute Robert for the murder.

[107] Instead, they decided to basically exile him for everybody's protection.

[108] And so from then until 1937, when Robert died, he was forced to live alone on the secluded farm outside of Paris, where the only visitors he ever got were doctors who would only show up during the day and with armed bodyguards.

[109] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good, are a fan of the strange dark and mysterious and if that's the case then i've got some good news we just launched a brand new strange dark and mysterious podcast called mr ballin's medical mysteries and as the name suggests it's a show about medical mysteries a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome in this free weekly show we explore bizarre unheard of diseases strange medical mishaps unexplainable deaths and everything in between.

[110] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[111] Go follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[112] Hey, all you fans of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious.

[113] It's me, Mr. Ballin, and today I have some big news.

[114] It's something I'm holding in my hands right now, and so obviously you can't see it, but this is something you're really going to want to see.

[115] It's the first ever official Mr. Ballin publication.

[116] It's a graphic novel, and it's called, called Mr. Ballin Presents, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, The Graphic Stories.

[117] It's an anthology of both classic and brand new, terrifying stories that we've never covered on any of my other platforms, because we created them specifically for this first book.

[118] Each of these stories in the book are feature -length, Mr. Ballin's stories that really needed to be told visually.

[119] And the artwork in this book is, I mean, I'm looking at it, and it's just absolutely stunning.

[120] So the book is not actually coming out until my birthday this year, October 1st, but you You can pre -order it right now at book .bollen studios .com.

[121] Again, that's book .bullenstudios .com.

[122] The next and final story of today's episode is called Trauma Room 1.

[123] On the night of February 19, 1994, a man in Southern California called 911 because his girlfriend was struggling to breathe.

[124] 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.

[125] But despite how upset this man was on the phone, he was not actually surprised this situation was unfolding.

[126] 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.

[127] 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.

[128] Had they caught it back then, they likely could have saved her.

[129] Still, after receiving her very grim diagnosis just a few weeks earlier, Gloria had resolved to fight her cancer as best as she could.

[130] After all, she had a lot to lose.

[131] Gloria had two young kids.

[132] She had a boy and a girl who were nine and 12 years old, respectively.

[133] And Gloria absolutely adored them and really devoted her life to them.

[134] 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.

[135] And then even when Gloria was not actively parenting her kids, she was always a very positive presence in their lives.

[136] 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.

[137] 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.

[138] 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.

[139] 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.

[140] 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 911 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.

[141] around 8 p .m. that night when the ambulance pulled up in front of Gloria's home.

[142] Paramedics climbed out.

[143] They rushed over to Gloria.

[144] They put her on a stretcher.

[145] They gave her a mask with oxygen, and then they loaded her into the back at the ambulance, and then seconds later they were flying down the road with their sirens blaring.

[146] While they sped toward the hospital in Riverside, which is a city about an hour east of Los Angeles, one of the paramedics on board the ambulance called ahead to the Riverside Hospital emergency room to talk to one of the doctors.

[147] And the doctor who answered was a 33 -year -old woman named Dr. Julie Gorsensky.

[148] And she loved her job.

[149] She loved the thrill and excitement and challenge of working in a big city emergency room.

[150] And so she takes this call.

[151] 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.

[152] And they told Julie they would be there in about five minutes.

[153] And so Julie, she hangs up the phone.

[154] and immediately began preparing for receiving a critical patient, as well as getting trauma room one ready, which is where Gloria would be treated.

[155] 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.

[156] They were used to receiving patients that were in very rough shape.

[157] 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.

[158] They thought tonight was going to be as routine as any other night.

[159] However, they would be very, very wrong.

[160] The ambulance ride took about 15 minutes, so they pulled into the Riverside Hospital right at 8 .15 p .m. 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.

[161] Once inside, Julie and the rest of her team, they took Gloria, and they pushed her left down a hallway into trauma room one.

[162] Once inside, the doctors and nurses immediately noticed that Gloria's heart rate was spiking dramatically, and her blood pressure was falling dramatically.

[163] So, Julie and her team began administering a standard set of treatments for someone in this condition.

[164] They switched Gloria's oxygen mask, she had been using on the ambulance ride for a more powerful one.

[165] They gave her painkillers, sedatives, and drugs to help steady her heartbeat.

[166] And at first, the treatments seemed to be working, because pretty quickly, Gloria's heartbeat began to level out.

[167] However, it didn't last.

[168] Soon, Gloria's heartbeat was racing so insanely fast that all of these alarms were going off on her heartbeat monitor.

[169] 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.

[170] This is a way for doctors to kind of reset a patient's heartbeat.

[171] As the nurses got the electric paddles ready, they and the rest of the medical team suddenly noticed two strange things about Gloria.

[172] The first was that Gloria seemed to be emitting this strange garlicky smell from her mouth.

[173] The second was, Gloria his skin looked very greasy.

[174] However, despite the entire medical team taking note of these two things, no one thought they were significant.

[175] Lots of patients suddenly are brought into the ER, and very rarely do they have a chance to shower or brush their teeth beforehand.

[176] And so they figured that was the reason she looked and smelled that way.

[177] 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.

[178] Gloria's chest.

[179] 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.

[180] 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.

[181] And as soon as she did this, trauma room one filled with a new smell.

[182] It was a chemical smell.

[183] And Julie immediately noticed it, she looked over at the nurse doing the blood draw and she said, I think it smells like ammonia in here.

[184] And the nurse who was doing the blood draw kind of scrunched her face up and disgust and nodded in agreement.

[185] The nurse finished the blood draw and then handed the blood vial to Julie.

[186] And as Julie was taking this blood vial from the nurse, she noticed the nurse looked suddenly very confused and very disoriented.

[187] Her eyes were kind of flickering and she was staring straight ahead like she didn't know where she was.

[188] 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.

[189] The blood, inside this vial, Gloria's blood, was full of these small white crystals.

[190] 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.

[191] Luckily, another doctor had seen the nurse starting to collapse and dove out and caught her right before her head hit the ground.

[192] This collapsed nurse was very quickly placed on a stretcher and wheeled out of trauma room one so the other doctors and nurses could focus on Gloria, who was obviously dying.

[193] And so Julie, who was 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.

[194] 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.

[195] 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?

[196] 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.

[197] And at the same moment that Julie was collapsing outside of trauma room one, inside of the trauma room, there was another thud as another nurse collapsed and then another and then another.

[198] 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.

[199] And so pretty quickly, the call came out over the hospital intercom to evacuate the hospital.

[200] 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.

[201] We need to save her right now.

[202] Outside the hospital, the parking lot very quickly filled up with doctors and nurses and other sick people on stretchers.

[203] 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 coworkers.

[204] Meanwhile, back inside of Trauma Room 1, things for Gloria only seemed to be getting worse.

[205] The four doctors and nurses 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.

[206] Finally, at 8 .50 p .m., roughly 35 minutes after Gloria had first been wheeled into the emergency room, she died.

[207] 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.

[208] But the most affected person, by far, was Julie.

[209] 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.

[210] And there, a nurse drew her blood, and in it were little white crystals just like in Gloria's blood.

[211] At 11 p .m., 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 and had made its way into trauma room one, and that's what had caused everyone to collapse and get sick.

[212] But despite an extensive search, the hazmat team did not find any leaks.

[213] 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.

[214] Her cancer had caused her heart and her kidneys to fail.

[215] Meanwhile, although the other medical staff members who had gotten sick inside of trauma room one had mostly recovered, Julie just could not seem to get any better.

[216] 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 wheel wheelchair.

[217] 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.

[218] 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.

[219] There was sewer gas that came in from a drain.

[220] There was a toxic gas that was created from a sterilizer that made two people in the hospital sick, and some of the hospital's water was found to have algae in it.

[221] 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.

[222] Riverside Hospital would be searched again and again for some sort of leak.

[223] Also, Gloria's home would be searched for toxic gases, and Gloria would be autopsied two additional times.

[224] But no one could find anything toxic anywhere.

[225] 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 1.

[226] They said it was mass sociogenic illness.

[227] 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.

[228] It's caused by fear and anxiety.

[229] 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.

[230] As for Gloria, they said she just died from her cancer.

[231] 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.

[232] She couldn't walk anymore because her bones were literally dying.

[233] 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.

[234] 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.

[235] And what these scientists found would make history.

[236] Here is what they discovered.

[237] 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.

[238] 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.

[239] It was called dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, for short.

[240] 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.

[241] 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.

[242] And it was this type of DMSO, the gel form, that Gloria had begun rubbing all over her skin, head to toe.

[243] This was the reason when she arrived in the emergency room, her skin looked greasy because she was literally covered head to toe in this gel.

[244] 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.

[245] 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.

[246] It turned out on the night that Gloria's boyfriend called 911 because Gloria was 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.

[247] And this secret medical condition that Gloria had was a urinary tract infection, which is an infection in any part of the urinary system.

[248] These are very common and usually very easy to treat.

[249] 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.

[250] 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.

[251] The danger started when the EMTs in the ambulance put that oxygen mask on glorious face as they transported her to the hospital.

[252] Suddenly, there was this new chemical being introduced into Gloria's body, oxygen.

[253] 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.

[254] Now, if Gloria had gotten to the hospital and responded more positively to the treatments and medicines that the doctors and nurses at the east, gave her, then Julie and the rest of the staff inside of that hospital would never have gotten sick.

[255] For that to happen, for that catastrophe to play out inside of that hospital, two very specific things had to happen in the correct order.

[256] And they did.

[257] First, there was the electric shocks.

[258] 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.

[259] And this time, the change made the chemical deadly.

[260] It became what's known as dimethyl sulfate, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War I. Once Gloria received those shocks to her chest, her body basically became a canister of nerve gas.

[261] And then one of the nurses drew Gloria's blood, which was the second event that ultimately set off the catastrophe.

[262] Emergency rooms are typically kept fairly cold, roughly 66 degrees Fahrenheit.

[263] But when this new deadly chemical was created inside of Gloria, it was still inside of her body where it was warm.

[264] And for dimethyl sulfate, when it is warm, it's unstable and much less dangerous.

[265] But when that nurse drew Gloria's blood, inside of the blood was the deadly chemical, and now it was no longer in Gloria.

[266] 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.

[267] The scientists from the Forensic Science Center do not think that this matter, mass -poisoning event contributed to Gloria's death, meaning Gloria did really die from her cancer.

[268] Gloria's family has denied that Gloria ever used DMSO, and they still insist that the hospital was responsible for Gloria's death.

[269] The hospital would ultimately pay $800 ,000 in settlement money to Gloria's family, but the hospital would never admit that they did anything wrong.

[270] 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.

[271] 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 1 at Riverside Hospital actually made her a better doctor.

[272] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

[273] If you enjoyed today's stories, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin, where we have hundreds more stories just like this one, but many of them are not available on this podcast.

[274] They're only on YouTube.

[275] Again, the YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.

[276] So, that's going to do it.

[277] I really appreciate your support.

[278] Until next time, see you.

[279] Hey, Prime members.

[280] You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[281] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[282] And before you go, please Tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.

[283] I'm Dan Tversky.

[284] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[285] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[286] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[287] She's like, I can't.

[288] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[289] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[290] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[291] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[292] Well, you were holding something back.

[293] Intentionally.

[294] Yeah, well, yeah.

[295] No, it's hysteria.

[296] It's all in your head.

[297] It's not physical.

[298] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[299] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[300] Or is it something else entirely?

[301] Something's wrong here.

[302] Something's not right.

[303] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[304] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[305] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[306] You can binge all episodes of hysterical.

[307] early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus.