Autopsy may unravel `fumes' mystery

  Jonathan T. Lovitt ; Anita Manning

  02/24/1994

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 03A

  (Copyright 1994)

  RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Physicians are hoping an autopsy on a cancer patient today

  will reveal the mystery fumes that knocked out a physician and several hospital

  nurses.

  Preliminary blood tests Wednesday ruled out that organo phosphate - a pesticide

  chemical found in nerve gas - was the force behind the fumes that felled several

  emergency ward staffers at Riverside General Hospital Saturday, said Dick

  Schaefer of Loma Linda University Medical Center.

  A physician and six nurses were hospitalized after becoming nauseated and

  unconscious when blood was drawn from cancer patient Gloria Ramirez.

  Ramirez, 31, died Saturday of a heart attack after a bout of nausea and breathing

  difficulties.

  Nurse Sally Balderas, who remained hospitalized Wednesday, said she

  remembered smelling "something funny" about the time another nurse was

  drawing blood from Ramirez. "Like ammonia, and then (the nurse taking blood)

  collapsed." It was "like fumes coming off her body, like you see coming off

  gasoline."

  Others then started getting sick.

  "All the nurses kept falling. We told everyone to get outside. I wheeled

  (Ramirez) into an isolation room, then I went back outside and started to put IVs

  on the nurses. Everyone was sick," she said.

  Fifteen minutes later, Balderas was overcome by nausea and fell unconscious for

  several hours.

  Investigators had speculated an unidentified substance may have been tossed into

  a flushable basin near Ramirez about the time her blood was drawn.

  "I still have doubts . . . It's hard to imagine it happening from the smelling of

  blood," said physician Reiner Bonnet, who is treating Julie Gorchinski, the

  physician who was knocked unconscious after treating Ramirez.

  Gorchinski was in fair condition Wednesday, but was suffering apnea -

  cessations of breathing. She is expected to be taken off a ventilator today.

  Early reports that Ramirez had been treated for ovarian cancer at Loma Linda

  and had been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation were false, Loma Linda

  hospital officials said.

  Ramirez had been diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer, and had been

  prescribed Compazine, a common nausea medication Feb. 17.

  "I've been swamped with all this conjecture," said fiance Johnnie Estrada, 26.

  "Let's just wait for the autopsy."

  Late Wednesday, Ramirez's body remained sealed in an airtight container, while

  coroners reviewed safety precautions for today's autopsy.

  Said Chief Deputy Coroner Daniel Cupido: "We're taking extra precautions. It's

  mysterious."

  PHOTO,color,AP; PHOTO,b/w,AP