Fantasia Barrino's Overdose: The 911 Call
Aug. 11, 2010— -- After singer Fantasia Barrino swallowed a bottle of aspirin, her manager had someone put her in the shower to keep her from losing consciousness, according to the 911 tape released by Charlotte, N.C., police today.
Barrino's manager, Brian Dickens, called 911 at 8:53 p.m. Monday, after finding the 2004 "American Idol" winner almost unconscious in her Charlotte mansion.
When the 911 operator asked him what happened, Dickens said, "An individual took a bottle of aspirin and she's slowly losing consciousness."
"Are you with the patient now?" the operator asked.
Dickens, on his cell phone, responded, "I'm outside, but someone else is with her inside."
"Is she awake?"
"Slowly losing consciousness," Dickens said, adding that Barrino was "halfway" awake.
"Is she breathing?"
"Yes," Dickens replied.
The operator asked if Barrino was violent or had a weapon, to which Dickens said no.
Asked where she was now, Dickens said he had her put in the shower to "keep her awake."
The operator told him to take Barrino out of the shower immediately and had an ambulance sent to the singer's home.
Barrino was taken to Mercy South Hospital at Carolinas Medical Center in Pineville, N.C., where she was hospitalized Monday night. The hospital had no record of her today.
Dickens could not be reached immediately to comment on the singer's current condition, but her father, Joseph Barrino told radaronline.com, "She's doing fine."
On Tuesday, Dickens said in a statement that Barrino was "stable."
"She will be released from the hospital soon," he said. "Fantasia will be fine. This is not the hardest thing Fantasia has endured."
Dickens said the overdose was accidental. He said she took too much aspirin and sleeping medication while exhausted and dehydrated.
But the timing of the overdose came just as news broke of a lawsuit that accuses Barrino of breaking up a couple's marriage.
A North Carolina woman filed court documents last week that claim her husband, Antwaun Cook, and Barrino engaged in a "covert adulterous affair" in August 2009 and that the two made a sex tape, which led to the couple's divorce.
Dickens confirmed in the statement that Barrino and Cook had had a relationship, but claimed it was Barrino who was betrayed.
"Fantasia and Mr. Cook dated on and off for about eleven months," Dickens said.
"Fantasia believed Mr. Cook when he told her he was in a bad marriage and his heart was not in it. She believed him when he told her he and Mrs. Cook separated in the late summer of 2009. She believed Mr. Cook when he told her he lived elsewhere. He even took her there," Dickens said. "One of Mr. Cook's most redeeming qualities was his complete devotion to his children. Fantasia loved Mr. Cook and thought he loved her."
