'I Couldn't Breathe': Woman Hospitalized After Picking Up 'Drug Tainted' $1 Bill

Nashville, Tennessee, -- A woman was hospitalized after she picked up a dollar bill that she found lying at a McDonald's and claimed it to be tainted with drugs.

The Kentucky-based woman was traveling through Nashville, Tennesse when she discovered the bill. She shared her terrifying ordeal on Facebook and the post has since then gone viral.

Renee Parsons had the scary experience Sunday while traveling with her husband, Justin Parsons, and her two kids. When the family took a pit stop at a McDonald's in Bellevue, Renee noticed a dollar bill on the ground and picked it up.

Moments later, after Renee got back into the car, she started experiencing numbness and soon fell unconscious.

"My body went completely numb, I could barely talk and I could barely breathe. I was fighting to stay awake," Renee said in her Facebook post which has been shared more than 304K times since Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Justin called 911 and rushed her to a hospital, where she recovered after receiving treatment. "She looked like she was dying. She certainly was unconscious and very pale," Justin told WKRN News2.

Justin also reportedly experienced rashes and his lips went numb after Renee touched him with her hands after clutching the money.

The couple believes that the episode was a case of an accidental drug overdose caused by fentanyl on the bill. They said a police officer who came to take their report told them that the dollar bill was either used to cut and/or store the drugs or was purposely left with drugs on it.

"I worked in law enforcement for 10 or 12 years and I observed a couple of incidents like this and it was very similar," Justin said, News Channel 5 reported.

However, the preliminary tests did not reveal any drugs in Renee's system, and the metro police said they did not see any residue on the dollar bill, so it was not tested for fentanyl, News4 reported.

Meanwhile, experts have a different opinion on Renee’s overdose theory. "I think it is really unlikely the substance this lady got into her system is fentanyl based on the symptoms she had,” Dr. Rebecca Donald, a fentanyl expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center told News4.

Donald said that even if the bill was tainted with drugs, it is very unlikely to cause harm just through skin-to-skin contact. However, a person's medical history and medications could contribute to similar symptoms, she said.

But Renee still holds on to her fentanyl theory. "What I do know is how I felt, what happened. It can’t be made up," she said adding that "it could have been a child" in her place.