WHEN Michael Lordson found an abandoned joint at work he text his girlfriend to say it was his “lucky day”.
Two and a half hours later he collapsed and died of accidental fentanyl poisoning.
Michael, 25, died within three minutes of sweeping a corner at a Nevada, US casino where he worked on May 5.
Earlier that day, the father of two young daughters, two and three, had texted a picture to his girlfriend of a pre-rolled joint and expressed the excitement of his find to coworkers.
At the time of his death he was found with no drugs, but a coroner later determined it was fentanyl poisoning that killed him.
Tamula Mercer, 65, Michael’s biological grandmother, who adopted him at two, never imagined her family would be part of the hundreds of daily fentanyl deaths nationwide.
Warning others about the hidden dangers of fentanyl, which can contaminate even casual drugs or surfaces, the caretaker in Bullhead City said: “Michael didn’t do drugs.
“He would smoke pot – we smoked pot together because it’s legal – but he hated alcohol and didn’t like the way it made him feel.
“That’s why all this just blows my mind that he would die this way.”
Tamula’s account of events is Michael, a maintenance worker at Riverside Casino in Laughlin, texted his girlfriend at 10am after finding the joint and called it his “lucky day” just hours before he was found dead.
She added: “I guess he told two of his other coworkers to come meet him and they’d smoke it together.
“They didn’t come and we don’t know if he smoked it.”
Fentanyl is a strong opioid painkiller used to treat severe pain, often during or after an operation or a serious injury, or pain from cancer.
It’s also used for other types of long-term pain when weaker painkillers have stopped working.
But unintentional use of fentanyl through contamination of the drug supply is believed to be a major contributor to the surge in overdoses.
Tamula said: “It’s not like in the old days where you can go to a party and somebody’s passing around a joint and everybody’s cool. It can be on anything.”
All you got to do is touch something, and if it’s got fentanyl on it and you touch your mouth, eyes, or nose, it’ll kill you
Tamula Mercer
While it’s not yet clear if Michael smoked the joint, Tamula says just touching fentanyl can lead to death.
She said: “All you got to do is touch something, and if it’s got fentanyl on it and you touch your mouth, eyes, or nose, it’ll kill you.”
A paper published in 2021 on police reports of accidental fentanyl overdose in the field stated: “Just touching fentanyl or accidentally inhaling the substance… can result in absorption through the skin and that is one of the biggest dangers with fentanyl.”
While there are no confirmed cases of overdose from touching fentanyl powder or pills, experts say fentanyl can be absorbed across the skin if constant direct contact over hours and days occurs.
Tamula said: “I talked to the mayor here in our town, and he said that all you have to do is be around it, and if it’s in the air and you smell it, it can kill you,” she said.
“He was telling me about a drug bust where the house was full of fentanyl, and all the detectives had to go 200 feet away while HAZMAT went in to clean it out.”
She added: “All you have to do is smell it and it goes up in your lungs and you’re gone.”
Now, Tamula has joined online fentanyl awareness groups and is working to prevent other families from experiencing her loss.
Her efforts take on new urgency as reports emerge of fentanyl appearing in unexpected places, including Halloween candy warnings that have parents reconsidering trick-or-treating traditions.
She said: “Now I go to the stores and I’m scared to touch things.”
Tamula revealed she had a heart attack on October 6 “due to the stress, the horrible grief that this has caused”.
Despite her grief and the challenges she faces in seeking accountability, Tamula remains focused on her mission to educate others about fentanyl’s dangers before more families are destroyed.
She said: “I just want, before other kids die, before other parents face what I’m facing, for people to know the dangers.
“If I could save one person, if we could save even one person.”
WHAT IS FENTANYL?
FENTANYL is a powerful synthetic opioid originally developed for legitimate medical use, primarily to treat severe pain in cases such as cancer or post-surgery recovery.
It is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin, meaning that just two milligrams, a tiny amount equivalent to a few grains of salt, can be lethal.
While it remains useful in hospitals, fentanyl is now flooding illegal drug markets, often disguised as heroin, cocaine, MDMA, or even fake prescription pills like Xanax or oxycodone.
This makes it especially deadly, as users often have no idea they’re taking it.
