这款洗衣神器竟然能杀人，该怎么破？

贝拉·曼西利亚斯正在玩倒立。

对8岁的孩子来说，在大人说话的时候尽情玩闹，比如玩侧手翻和劈叉一点也不稀奇。但贝拉的妈妈凯蒂·曼西拉斯解释说，现在贝拉能这样玩几乎是奇迹。

六年前，贝拉刚两岁时曾被送进医院，呕吐失控把液体吸入肺部，阻塞了呼吸道。贝拉到医院不久就停止了呼吸，脑电图也有一会成了直线。“哦，天哪，贝拉快死了。”凯蒂记得曾对姐姐说。

贝拉在生死边缘挣扎不是因为胃部病毒，也不是因为喝了农药。凯蒂说，罪魁祸首是一个黏糊糊的彩色小包，在美国家庭中越来越常见的汰渍洗衣凝珠。

凯蒂·曼西利亚斯经常为住在圣迭戈郊区的大家庭洗衣服，每次都得拖一大堆东西去附近的洗衣店。她第一次看到洗衣凝珠就觉得很方便，当时凝珠刚上市，里面是浓缩洗衣液，而且很容易携带。

2012年11月17日，凯蒂从好市多买回第一盒汰渍凝珠，顺手放在厨房台子上。凯蒂记得盒子是透明塑料的，上面有个按钮，按下就可以打开盖子。当时她正在忙着整理买回的东西，转过身就看到贝拉打开盒子拿起一个凝珠往嘴里塞。等到凯蒂抢走，贝拉已经咬了一口。“从表面看确实像糖果。我觉得贝拉就是当成糖果吃的。”凯蒂说。

凯蒂赶紧打电话给毒物控制中心，对方告诉她要灌贝拉喝32盎司的水，然后等30分钟，看看会不会呕吐气泡。“27分钟后，她开始呕吐。”凯蒂回忆道。“就像泡泡机里冒的泡泡一样。”

Bella Mancillas is standing on her head.

For an 8-year-old to be exuberantly goofing off, performing cartwheels and splits while grownups are talking, is nothing out of the ordinary. But as her mother, Katie Mancillas, is explaining, in Bella’s case, it’s almost miraculous.

Six years ago, when Bella was 2, she was rushed to the hospital because she was vomiting so uncontrollably that she inhaled fluid into her lungs, blocking her airways. Not long after she arrived, Bella stopped breathing and briefly flatlined. “Oh, my God, I think Bella’s gonna die,” Katie remembers telling her sister.

The cause of Bella’s near-death experience wasn’t a nasty stomach virus or a toxic pesticide. According to Katie, it was a squishy, multicolored packet that’s an increasingly common presence in American homes: a Tide Pod.

Katie Mancillas often did the laundry for her large family in the suburbs of San Diego, lugging loads to the nearby laundromat. When she first saw the pods—easily portable packets of concentrated detergent, then new to the market—she thought they’d be a useful convenience.

On Nov. 17, 2012, Katie brought home her first case of Tide Pods, from Costco, and placed them on the kitchen counter. Katie recalls that the case was clear plastic, with a button on top that opened the lid when pushed. She was unloading her groceries, she says, when she turned around to see that Bella had opened the case and was about to put a pod in her mouth. She bit into it before Katie could snatch it away. “It literally did look like candy. And I honestly think that that’s what she thought it was,” says Katie.

Katie immediately called poison control and was told to force Bella to drink 32 ounces of water and wait 30 minutes to see if she started vomiting bubbles. “At 27 minutes, she started projectile vomiting,” Katie recalls. “It was just bubbles, like from a bubble machine.”

他们赶紧去医院。到医院时凯蒂看到贝拉的脸已经憋蓝了，医护人员用一根呼吸管穿过她喉咙里的气泡，立刻转移到儿童医院进入昏迷，然后从肺部吸出清洁剂。

凯蒂讲话时，一旁的贝拉也停止了即兴体操，缩进妈妈一侧的沙发里。在T恤、背包和笔记本上的闪光衬托下，神采奕奕的小姑娘立刻阴沉下来。

两周时间贝拉生死未卜，凯蒂在医院里日夜焦灼。终于贝拉有了自主呼吸，但面临着严峻的挑战，要重新学习走路和说话。从此以后她经常生病，医生推测是由肺损伤导致。最严重的是眼睛。贝拉患上一种斜视，眼睛垂直错位。医生认为原因是中毒期间缺氧。她一直在努力学习读写，做了两次眼科手术，可能还要做第三次。

“过得很艰难。”贝拉说，这一刻她很像个疲惫的成年人，而不是无忧无虑的孩子。“但得努力克服。”

They raced to the hospital. When they arrived, Katie saw Bella turn blue as medical staff struggled to steer a breathing tube through the bubbles in her throat. After Bella was intubated, they transferred her to a children’s hospital, where she was placed into a medically induced coma so that they could try to suction the detergent out of her lungs.

As Katie retells the story, Bella ends her impromptu gymnastics routine and nestles into her mother’s side on the couch. Her otherwise bright demeanor—illustrated by the glitter that covers her T-shirt, backpack, and notebook—turns somber.

After two weeks of Katie not knowing whether her daughter would pull through, Bella started breathing on her own again. But she had serious challenges ahead. She had to relearn how to walk and talk. She got sick often after the episode, which her doctor surmised was because of the lung injuries she had sustained. The most serious effects have been on her eyes. Bella has a type of strabismus in which the eyes are misaligned vertically; her doctors attribute it to oxygen deprivation during the incident. She has struggled to read and write properly, and she’s had two eye surgeries, with a possible third to come.

“It’s hard,” says Bella, who in this moment sounds more like a jaded adult than a carefree kid. “But you just kind of have to fight through it.”