Okay, I finally found something on this at:
brainmind.com...
They are dismissing it as "mass hysteria" at this particular site.
Excerpt from site:
Consider, for example, the widely reported incident of possible mass hysteria which took place in the emergency room of General Hospital in Riverside
California (reviewed by Stone, 1995). Specifically, on the evening of February 19, 1994, a 31 year old women, Gloria R. was in the process of being
resuscitated when a female nurse, S. K. noticed a chemical smell, similar to ammonia that she thought was coming from Gloria's blood.
In addition, a female resident, J. G. noticed manila colored particles floating in the blood. Suddenly the nurse, S.K. felt that her face was burning
and she fell to the floor. She was placed on a gurney and taken to away. Suddenly the female resident, J. G. began feeling queasy and light headed.
She then slumped to the floor, shook and convulsed intermittently, and displayed apnea. And then, a female respiratory therapist M. W. also began
displaying symptoms and "couldn't control the movement of" her "limbs." And then, a vocational nurse, S. B., felt a burning sensation and began
retching. Eventually 23 of the 37 emergency room staff were afflicted and an intensive investigation was launched to determine the cause.
According to the California Dept. of Heath and Human Services, and two of its scientists, Drs. A. Osorio and K. Waller, those afflicted experienced
"an outbreak of mass sociogenic illness, perhaps triggered by an odor," i.e. mass hysteria. It was noted that the two male paramedics who brought in
the patient and who touched G.R.'s skin and blood did not become ill, and that women were predominantly and the most severely effected. It was also
noted that those who had skipped dinner and were working on an empty stomach (which would induce limbic arousal) were also more likely to be effected.
Nevertheless, the diagnosis of "mass hysteria" was not acceptable to those who became ill, or to their attorneys. Scientists at Livermore
Laboratories were called onto the case. As often occurs when lawsuits are involved, completely different conclusions were reached and a completely
different scenario involving a rather harmless substance, DMSO, was hypothesized as the main factor involved (see Stone 1995 for details). That is,
these female nurses and female doctors became "ill" because of a sequence of chemical transformations involving the deceased patient's presumed
excessive use of DMSO as a treatment for pain. The family of the patient (Gloria R.), however, denied that she ever used DMSO or had access to it.