A mother-of-three was believed to be “possessed by an evil spirit” by her family after she started “talking gibberish” and turning violent.
39-year-old Lorina Gutierrez, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, started “talking gibberish” all of a sudden as she would say, “we need to get out of here, we need to leave” and keep trying to leave the house.
Watch the woman who was believed to be “possessed by an evil spirit” by her family
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Her 42-year-old husband, Stephen Gutierrez, who is a truck driver, though she was “possessed by an evil spirit” and even doused her in holy water.
Mr. Gutierrez said: “I was so scared, it was like she was possessed. The night after she came home from the ER we were up the whole night. She couldn’t sleep and she was just talking gibberish. She kept saying “We need to get out of here, we need to leave.”
“She kept getting up and trying to leave the house. The next morning I brought her to her doctor, who asked me had she been drinking or using drugs.”
She would say there were cameras in her home and even punched her husband during a medical assessment.
Mrs. Gutierrez said: “Over the course of a few days, my husband said my attitude completely changed. I can’t remember this but he said I was getting scared and I was worried there were cameras in the house.”
“I told him we had to unplug them. I kept trying to escape and get out of the house.”
Medics then sent her to a psychiatric hospital where psychiatric hospital doctors found a 15cm tumour on one of her ovaries which attacked her brain.
She was told she had autoimmune encephalitis – a rare condition caused by immune cells attacking the brain.
Due to the rare condition, Lorina was unable to walk, talk and eat by herself and was experiencing six seizures a day.
Doctors removed the tumour and started clearing her body of the dangerous antibodies as they performed plasmapheresis – a process of filtering of the blood.
Mrs. Gutierrez said: “During my time in hospital I coded blue and they had to resuscitate me. I lost all function, the ability to walk, talk, eat or even go to the restroom by myself. I was a 39-year-old woman wearing adult diapers.”
“Over the course of three months I underwent speech, physical, and occupational therapy but I don’t remember much of it. It’s a blur.”
She now wants to raise awareness about autoimmune encephalitis as she said: “I’m a survivor and I really feel like I can help others with experience and information. I know now that that is my purpose.”
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