Iowa's Toxic Teenager

Cedar: January 23rd at Podebrad Medical Center began normally enough, however when 19 year old Gina Dempski was admitted to the emergency room one of the strangest cases in Iowa medical history was opened, and is yet to be closed.

     Gina had severe problems with her liver and was waiting for confirmation of tests for cervical cancer. On that night in January she was at the home of Tad Ringermann, her boyfriend, when she began to show symptoms of some new medical malady. "We were making out, you know, she was upset about all her medical problems and I was trying to show her that it didn't matter to me. I loved her anyway," Tad said of the incident, "And then she just started throwing up. Right in the middle of a kiss, and she's puking her guts out. I kind of freaked, but, you know, I was there for her and comforting her while she vomited in this mixing bowl and we waited for the ambulance."

     Gina was rushed to the Medical Center and as she lay dying in the emergency room the attending staff began to pass out in a wave radiating from her body. Many of those who fainted had to be hospitalized themselves. No ready explanation for the effect on the hospital staff is now available, but many are citing "toxic fumes" emanating from Gina herself which may have gassed the attending physicians and ER personnel.

     Dempski had arrived at the Medical Center ER at around 9:15, and was diagnosed with severe cardiac distress. Her blood pressure was dangerously low and her heart rate so fast one attendant said it was more like a single sustained note rather than repetitive beatings. The chambers of the heart were not filling up adequately and she seemed to be reacting negatively to drug treatment and resisted breathing the air being pumped into her lungs by the respirator. When she cried out and her heart stopped suddenly, the ER staff quickly moved to defibrillate her. It was only when Gina's blouse was removed to facilitate the procedure that nurse Nicole McLuren notices what she recalls as a strange film of "glowing grease" covering the skin of the patient's torso and a strong smell of ammonia in the air.

     Nurse McLuren took a blood sample from Dempksi and noted with surprise that the blood was more the color of fuscia than crimson, and the syringe also emitted the strange pungent odor of ammonia. Respiratory therapist Jamie "Twobeers" Schutze also noted the smell, and upon close examination saw specks in the blood sample which seemed to dart about inside the cylinder like "agitated sea monkeys."

     Within just a few seconds of the needle puncture into the skin of Miss Dempski and the drawing of the blood sample, the patient screamed in uncontrolled agony, and lost consciousness. She was never to be revived.

     Nurse Mcluren, who took the blood sample, complained of burning pains on her face and then collapsed to the floor. She had to be carried away on a gurney. Soon after, Schutze also reported having the burning sensation and a lightheadedness. She fell to her knees moaning before passing out, shattering one knee cap in the process. Other members of the staff suffered burning sensations on the skin, involuntary thrashing of arms, and bouts of uncontrolled vomiting. At least half of those present fainted.

     Most of the afflicted hospital staff were themselves under observation and care for ten days following the incident. Out of 37 ER staffers present, 32 reported suffering the above described symptoms. Dr. Susan Berry, emergency room director, evacuated the ER. Berry pronounced Dempski dead at 10:05pm and had the body sealed in an airtight bag and waited for the Cedar County hazardous materials team and the coroner's office to investigate.

     Nurse McLuren, who had first noted the "agitated sea monkeys" in the blood sample has disappeared. The Medical Center claims that upon full recovery the former nurse moved out of state to live with her parents but we have discovered that no forwarding address was left behind, her final pay check remains uncashed, and all her personal belongings remain in her apartment. Sources at Podebrad (who declined to be named) claim that Nurse Mcluren was placed in a private and secure room when similar particles were seen in post trauma samples her blood as well. This fact, coupled with a week long interrogation coupled with complete physical examination of Tad Ringermann by the National Center for Disease Control have lead many to speculate wildly on the nature of Gina's ailment and have the entire town of Zoar in a state of tense apprehension.

     Gina's body has not yet been released to her family for burial, and the Cedar County Coroner's Office will not discuss the findings of their autopsy, other than to say results are inconclusive. Third Eye has learned; however, that the autopsy was conducted by "outside" personnel in airtight contamination suits. Samples of blood, tissue, and the even the air that had been sealed in Dempski's body bag were taken to Washington, Tesla Research Labs, and the University of Emmitsburg for further testing. The "moon suit" autopsy has the local medical community worried, as up to this point in human history there is no known instance of fumes or airborne substances from a cadaver harming a living person.

     As yet there are no easy conclusions in the bizarre death of Gina Dempski. There has been no real attention paid to her death by the local mainstream media, and the Medical Center itself has offered several versions of what happened in the ER. There are those, including Dempski's family, who claim that the toxins came not from Gina's body, but from some source within the hospital. They insist that there is a massive coverup going on at Podebrad because of this incident, and hope that the pending wrongful death suit will force the hospital to come clean on whatever it might be hiding. In response to this lawsuit, the hospital's original explanation of "mass hysteria" in the ER has been retracted. The PMC now claims that Dempski's chemotherapy treatments were the catalyst for the toxic cloud which erupted from her body, but she had not undergone such a treatment and in fact, when the test results came back from her cervical examination, it clearly showed that the cancer scare had been a false alarm, there was no cancer present in her cervix.

     When asked about the blood sample and the strange bodies moving about in it, attending physician Dr. Alan McSway reports that what Nurse Schutze saw was nothing more than heparin (an anti-coagulant) commonly present in the vacutainers used for blood samples. He did admit that the coloration of the sample was rather unusual, and that heparin does not ordinarily swirl of its own volition. He also readily admits that he was one of the staff who passed out when the alleged fumes began emanating from Miss Dempski, but adamantly denies that it is even remotely possible some new parasite is making its home in human blood, and protecting itself by emitting poison gas when removed from the host body. He refused permission to be quoted directly on this case.

     On an interesting, and possibly unconnected, side bar---during the first week of February a man was admitted to the ER after a car accident. No one can yet explain why this patient lept from his bed in the ICU and bit the penis off the patient in the bed next to him and then went on a hysterical rampage through the hospital, shouting in an as yet unidentifiable language. It took several police officers to subdue him and the patient who suffered this bizarre attack later died from his injury.