When you see money lying on the ground, what is your first reaction? Pick it up, naturally! I mean really, even if it’s only $1 – a dollar is a dollar. That’s what Renee Parsons thought when she picked up a $1 bill off the ground outside a Nashville Mcdonald’s. Unfortunately, it’s possible that the $1 bill ended up putting her in the hospital. This is what happened.
“I Thought I Was Dying”
This past Sunday evening, Renee and her husband Justin took a casual pit-stop at the McDonalds on Highway 70 in Nashville while on their way home. It was there in the parking lot where Renee saw a $1 bill sitting on the ground. Not thinking much of it, she reached down and picked it up. (1)
Just minutes later, Renee’s body began going numb. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Justin says that her speech then began to slur before she completely passed out.
“I couldn’t even breathe. It’s almost like a burning sensation, if you will, that starts here at your shoulders, and then it just goes down because it’s almost like it’s numbing your entire body,” Renee explained.
Her husband was driving as fast as he could to the nearest hospital. She recalled grabbing Justin’s arm with the same hand she used to pick up the bill, begging him to help her, and telling him her symptoms were getting worse. Not long after, Justin, too, began feeling the effects.
“My lips started going numb and my arm broke out in a rash,” he described.
The couple made it to the hospital where doctors monitored their vitals and helped them with their symptoms. Justin’s lasted for about one hour, whereas Renee’s lasted for four.
An Accidental Overdose
Her doctors told them that what they experienced was an accidental overdose. On what, however, they can’t be sure. This is because the toxicology report doesn’t test for synthetic drugs. The doctors say that the bill was likely used to cut or roll some kind of drug. The family says they feel confident that that drug was the powerful and dangerous opiate, fentanyl.
Was It Really Fentanyl?
There is no doubt that fentanyl is an extremely powerful drug and the dangers of overdose are very real. That being said, this case was not necessarily thanks to the infamous opiate. Medical experts have since debunked the myth that having skin contact with fentanyl can cause overdose – it can’t. Your skin acts as an excellent barrier and does not permit the drug to enter your body in this way. In order to overdose, they say you need to either snort or inject it. (2)