Authorities skeptical of Kentucky woman’s claim of fentanyl-laced $1 bill

By COURTNEY ALLEN, CNN

BELLEVUE, Tenn. (WSMV) — A Kentucky couple is speaking out after the wife said she overdosed after picking up a dollar bill.

Renee Parsons picked up what she thinks was a fentanyl-laced dollar bill during a fast food stop in the Nashville area and had a bad reaction. Her husband said he even started to feel symptoms after his wife touched his arm.

Parsons said picking up a dollar bill at a McDonald’s in Bellevue, Tenn., on Sunday afternoon landed her in the hospital.

“It is like your body is just shutting down,” she said.

Parsons and her husband, Justin, of Lexington, Kentucky, were on their way to a work conference in Dallas on Sunday with two of their children. They stopped at the McDonald’s in Bellevue.

“As I was walking inside, there was a dollar on the floor just hanging out, so I picked it up, not thinking anything of it,” Renee Parsons said.

Within 10 minutes after picking up the dollar, she said, her body went numb. She said she could barely talk or breathe before passing out.

“She hadn’t said anything for a while, then she said, ‘Justin, I am sorry. I love you.’ Then she just quit talking,” Justin Parsons said.

They drove to St. Thomas Ascension Hospital in Nashville, where paperwork showed Renee Parsons had an accidental drug overdose. The couple believe the dollar she picked up was laced with fentanyl.

A fentanyl expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Rebecca Donald, had some reservations about the story.

“I think it is really unlikely the substance this lady got into her system is fentanyl based on the symptoms she had,” Donald said.

Donald is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at Vanderbilt. She said skin-to-skin contact is not a way people are exposed to drugs at levels that would cause them harm.

“It is much more likely for her to have a reaction if she had inadvertently rubbed her nose and exposed that drug to some of the blood vessels in her nose or licked her fingers or rubbed her eyes,” Donald said.

Donald said it is possible for the drug to get aerosolized and inhaled.

“That would take more of a volume of drug or quantity of drug,” Donald said. “It is certainly not impossible for that to happen, but one would think it would be a significant amount that you could see it on the hands and dollar bill to get into the air system.”

Donald said someone’s medical history and medications they are taking may also contribute to systems. She said fentanyl contaminating anything is a safety threat and could be life-threatening.

“What I do know is how I felt, what happened. It can’t be made up,” Renee Parsons said.

Nashville Metro Police said officers did not see any sort of residue on the dollar bill, so it was not tested for fentanyl since no one is being charged. Police said they were still going to destroy the dollar bill.

Metro Police said this is not an issue they are seeing in Nashville.

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