British dad died of ‘accidental’ fentanyl overdose on Disney World trip
Fentanyl is much more potent than heroin, and very small amounts can cause severe clinical effects or death.
A British dad who died on a family trip could have ‘accidentally’ been poisoned by the lethal drug fentanyl.
Philip Weybourne, 40, from West Malling in Kent, was at the famous resort in Florida with his wife and young son in May when he suddenly collapsed at a bar.
Toxicology reports heard at an inquest into Mr Weybourne’s death said that he had fatal levels of the synthetic opioid in his blood.
Officials believe he did not intend to buy fentanyl and could have thought it was something else.
According to police and autopsy reports seen by The Times, The director of an international IT company had taken a taxi in which officers found a bag ‘that appeared to be packaged as an unknown type of illicit drug’.
He’d been drinking alone in a bar at the resort prior to falling ill.
An inquest at County Hall in Maidstone previously heard he was then rushed to hospital, where his condition rapidly deteriorated and died shortly after.
Toxicology reports showed he had fatal levels of the ‘single deadliest drug threat our nation (USA) has ever encountered.’
Fentanyl is much more potent than heroin, and very small amounts can cause severe clinical effects or death.
Around two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose.
New details have now emerged in The Times, including those of an autopsy and a police report into the death.
Jonathan Canada, deputy sheriff of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, said in a report that Mr Weybourne had taken a taxi in which officers found a bag ‘that appeared to be packaged as an unknown type of illicit drug’.
It contained a powder that police believe he obtained in the American Boulevard area of Orlando.
Dr Joshua Stephany, chief medical examiner at the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office, later confirmed in an autopsy that he had died because of fentanyl toxicity and said no other illegal substances were found in his body.
Stephany determined the manner of death as an ‘accident’ and suggested that Weybourne may not have known he had bought fentanyl.
He said: ‘Like any unknown substance bought illicitly, you don’t know what you’re buying or taking.’
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