She had very high levels of mercury in her blood, and all attempts at chelation therapy to remove it were ineffective. That’s surely because it had spread throughout her body by the time the problem was recognized, but frankly no one can be sure if there were any measures that could have been effective enough after the initial exposure.

Is this accurate? I read the original Wetterhahn report (it's the first search result on Google) and chelation did appear to reduce whole blood mercury, but didn't do anything for the CNS exposure.

That would be important because it suggests immediate Succimer treatment could avert fatal CNS exposure (it takes hours/days for the blood/brain transfer to occur, apparently).

Obviously, not an expert.

Oh thank goodness. I was honestly shaken just thinking about how horrifying it would be to be a college-aged student who managed to expose themselves to dimethylmercury. Even if they were doing something stupid and reckless, that's a horrible way to go.