A disturbing trend is emerging after several Black women have come forward to share their terrifying experiences with poison laced napkins on social media.
It began with a Houston woman named Erin Mims. Mims shared her experience with a napkin that she found placed in the door handle of her car after leaving a restaurant with her husband.
In her video she stated that she removed the napkin with her fingertips, washed her hands right after, and before she knew it she started experiencing symptoms that led to her hospitalization.
Since that viral video, countless other women have come forward to share similar experiences including an Atlanta woman named Laysha White who recently found a suspicious piece of paper sticking out of her trunk.
In this episode of TSR Investigates we’ll speak directly with Mark Winter… managing director of the Southeast Houston Poison Center to see what insight he can provide.
Are Black women being targeted specifically? If so, what should women do to stay safe? The Shade Room investigates…
Erin Mims had a terrible birthday experience this year, when she ended up hospitalized after being poisoned by an unknown substance that had been placed on a napkin inside her car door handle.
She used her fingertips to remove the napkin, and said within minutes, she was feeling symptoms, burning chest, racing heart, hot flashes…
“Within five minutes, my whole arm started tingling and going numb, and then I couldn’t breathe, I started getting hot flashes, my chest was hurting, my heart was beating really fast,” Mims told the local Fox affiliate in Houston.
Doctors took urine tests, blood screens and even a CAT scan, and the exact source of her poisoning was still inconclusive.
However, she did still suffer “acute poisoning of an unknown substance,” according to doctors, but the scary part the similar stories that followed.
Countless other Black women began coming forward with stories of having been poisoned by mysterious chemicals.
Laysha White filmed a similar video and posted in on social media, showing the type of napkin that had been used when she too was hospitalized after experiencing poisoning symptoms.
Another woman filmed a $5 dollar bill on the sidewalk in Bay Point California, which had been coated in a similar chemical and left in front of an ATM. She warned her followers that people were using money to poison Black women.
“So, ya’ll know that people is trying to poison people with money, right?” she said in the video. “Don’t fall for it.”
Both the DEA and the Houston Police Department have been flummoxed by Mims’ case, which was left just as inconclusive as the number of similar stories that followed.
A number of possibilities have been put forth as to what the chemicals could be. Fentanyl is a fast-acting powdery substance that can be deadly and can be absorbed through the skin.
Others have posited it could have been certain weeds, or even insect killers that had been banned in the 1980s. One case involved a chemical that could have only been accessed by military personnel.
Detractors have noted Mims’ admission of being a germaphobe, and put forward the idea that it could have been a panic attack.
The Shade Room spoke to Mark Winter, managing director of the Southeast Houston Poison Center, who acknowledged there are substances that could “incapacitate within a few minutes of contact.”
Winter added that there are few chemicals that will cause instantaneous poisoning symptoms, and also didn’t toss out the idea that it could have been spurred by a panic attack either, saying “the mind is a powerful thing.”
“You can believe you’re exposed and believe you’re having problems, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets,” Winter said.
Still, White said she won’t get too comfortable, and warned any Black woman who comes in contact with such sketchy materials to go to the hospital right away, even if the symptoms might be mental.
“If you do notice something on your car, drive to the police station,” White said. “You don’t know who’s trailing you or following you.”
Winter went on to say that human bodies can react very differently to various substances, but that its best practice to remain aware of your surroundings at all times.
Meanwhile, any kind of criminal investigation remains unresolved in Mims’ and White’s cases.
Have you experienced a similar situation?
