Fayetteville Police dispatchers received a call at 5:26 a.m. after a man entered the ER and claimed he had been poisoned by ricin, a poison found naturally in castor beans. If castor beans are chewed and swallowed, released ricin can prevent cells from making necessary proteins, causing injury and possibly death, according to the CDC.
Emergency department staff evacuated the waiting room and isolated the patient in a decontamination room.
The Fayetteville Fire Department joined the police department to take a sample from a bag the patient dropped on a chair, which contained an unidentified substance. “We determined that it was in fact not ricin,” said Tom Good, assistant chief with the Fayetteville Fire Department.
Fire department officials are not certain if the substance was castor beans. “Nobody here was ever in any danger, and the emergency department was never shut down,” Mr. Good added. “Patients were rerouted back into the ER.”
The patient is being questioned at an undisclosed location in Fayetteville.
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