Verilu Infante 
BROWNSVILLE – This incident was one nearly a duplicate from the 1988 teen drama movie Heathers. In the film, the character Heather Chandler dies after unknowingly drinking a cup of a cleaning chemical substance.
In this case, the female student was about to drink her cup of orange juice, tasted it, and found it was bitter. She eventually discovered her roommate poured laundry detergent into the beverage.
According to UTRGV Chief of Police Raul Munguia, the roommate’s intentions were unknown but there was discourse between the two before the incident occurred and they now no longer live together.
“In this particular case, what it comes down to is a class C assault. Those are, class C misdemeanors are fine only, anywhere from 0 to 500 dollar fine. The suspect will have to go through municipal court and actually answer to a judge about what occurred,” said Munguia.
We spoke to the UTRGV Director of Health and Wellness Cristel Escalona to discuss the effects laundry detergent has on the body and what would have happened if the female student had ingested the detergent. Her reaction says it all.
“That happened here!? I can’t believe somebody did that to another human. When you eat these things, it starts breaking down what you’re made of, so you suffer burns in your esophagus, you can suffer burns in your lungs and have trouble breathing, and that’s why a lot of people started to die of eating Tide Pods specifically,” she said.
Escalona states if you are ever found in this type of situation, the Poison Control Center should be contacted immediately.
“The reason why is because Poison Control has toxicologists who have a massive database, and they know exactly what it is that you need to do,” she continued.
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