A Woman Who Turned a Hospital into a Crime Scene

On February 19, 1994, the emergency room at Riverside General Hospital looked just like any other California hospital on a Saturday night. Until Gloria Ramirez arrived. She was 31. A mother of two. Diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer. But what happened in that ER had nothing to do with her cancer—at least, not in the usual way. She walked in breathing fast, confused, and speaking in slurred sentences. Her heart was racing. Her chest was rising and falling in a weird rhythm doctors instantly recognized: Cheyne–Stokes respiration. That’s a dangerous sign—something was seriously wrong with her brain or lungs. Her boyfriend, Johnnie Estrada, had called 911 earlier that night. Gloria had spent the whole day vomiting. By the time paramedics brought her in around 8:15 p.m., her body was crashing. The ER team jumped into action. They gave her three powerful sedatives—diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam. Then lidocaine and Bretylium to calm her heart. Nothing was working. Her conditi ... Read full article.