A woman has said she believed she was going to die moments after picking up a dollar bill believing drugs were to blame.
On Sunday, Renee Parsons quickly became ill after she said she picked up a dollar bill on the ground outside a McDonald’s on Highway 70 in Bellevue, Tennessee.
Ms Parsons said she began to experience numbness all over her body before clinging to her husband for support, feeling faint.
“I felt I was dying,” she told WKRN. “I couldn’t even breathe. It’s almost a burning sensation if you will, that starts at your shoulders and just goes downv (the body)”.
Not long after experiencing those symptoms, Ms Parsons said she clung to her husband Jason for support before losing consciousness.
“I grabbed my husband’s arm with the same hand that I had the money in and said ‘Justin, please help me, it won’t stop, it’s getting worse”.
He also began experiencing symptoms and said to the news station: “My lips started going numb and I had my arm broke out in a rash”.
Both were eventually taken to a nearby hospital where Mr Parsons was discharged after one hour, and Ms Parsons four hours later.
Doctors classed the incident as an “accidental” drug overdose, with the couple suspecting drugs were to blame.
Ms Parsons said a police officer who responded to the scene said the dollar bill had “likely been used to cut or store drugs” such as fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, although this remains unconfirmed.
A toxicology report done at the hospital did not test for synethic drugs, so it was not possible to determine if it was fentanyl, WKRN reported.
In a warning to others, the mother of six said a child could have been harmed – including her three-month-old child who was in her arms at the time.
“I just want people to know because it could’ve been a child”, she said.
Following similar incidents in the past, it remains disputed by experts if somebody can overdose from fentanyl without a significant amount entering the bloodstream.
