ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994                   TAG: 9402230198
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Short

AUTOPSY TO SEEK CAUSE OF WOMAN'S TOXIC FUMES

Investigators hope an autopsy today will provide some clues to a mysterious incident in which hospital emergency room personnel were overcome by toxic fumes apparently emitted by a woman whose life they were trying to save.

The fumes forced the evacuation of the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital in Riverside, west of Los Angeles, late Saturday and led to the hospitalization of a physician and three nurses who treated the woman, Gloria Ramirez, 31. Ramirez died after going into cardiac arrest.

Hospital authorities could offer no explanation for the ammonia-like fumes reported in the emergency room when Ramirez's blood was drawn. Nor could they explain the presence of yellow particles found not only in her blood, but in blood later taken from Dr. Julie Gorchinski, who examined her.

- The Washington Post 


 by CNB