University of Warwick student Lukia Pardoe had one of those nights that only gets funnier with time — after she accidentally drank half a bottle of fabric freshener thinking it was water.
The 20-year-old politics major from Birmingham was celebrating the end of the college year at a leavers’ party on May 8. “I obviously had quite a lot to drink,” she later said. She made it back to her student house around 1 a.m. and crashed. She hadn’t been staying there much lately, so the three bottles lined up on her desk — two of water and one of Astonish Fresh Linen fabric refresher — didn’t stand out.
Around 3 a.m. the thirst woke her. Still drunk, she grabbed the nearest bottle in the dark, twisted the cap, and started drinking. The liquid burned right away. She chalked it up to the hot pizza she’d eaten earlier and kept going. “I had half of the bottle,” she recalled. “I was still really drunk and I carried on drinking it. I just remember thinking, ‘This water tastes really bad.’”
The chemical taste stuck with her. She spent the rest of the night going downstairs for more water — about ten glasses — trying to flush it out. When morning came and she finally saw the empty fabric-refresher bottle, the full picture hit. A friend walked in just as it registered. “I looked at the bottle and stopped breathing for a second,” Pardoe said. “I said, ‘I’ve drunk half of that bottle.’”
Her flatmate drove her to Warwick Hospital with the bottle in tow. Doctors ran blood tests and an ECG, then gave her charcoal tablets. They told her the extra water she’d drunk overnight had already cleared most of the chemical. The staff reaction was less clinical. When Pardoe held up the bottle and explained what happened, one hospital worker laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe and had to leave the room for ten full minutes.
Pardoe has since recovered, though a chemical taste and a cough lingered for a while, along with the stomach cramps she felt at the time. She posted about the ordeal on social media and has learned to laugh about it, even if her family and friends still won’t let her forget. “It is a funny story,” she said. “I’m very grateful nothing worse happened.”
The only rule she’s made going forward is simple: nothing that isn’t water belongs on that desk again.
