A family from Colorado is warning other parents about the dangers of Buckyballs after a 2-year-old girl swallowed 28 of the small magnets which sent her to the hospital.
Ella McBrien reportedly swallowed the small high-powered magnets when her father, Kyle McBrien, stepped away to use the bathroom.
The parents spoke to FOX31 Denver on Sunday and said that the girl likes to put things in her mouth.
“It was terrifying,” the girl’s mother, Elizabeth McBrien, said.
The X-rays reportedly showed the magnets linked together to form a circle in the girl’s bowel. The magnets pinched a piece of the organ, which formed a whole. The first procedure to remove the BB-sized spheres failed, leading doctors to use a specialized endoscopy to remove them.
“They were pinching the bowel and causing the early formation of a hole within the bowel by the time we got in there,” Dr. Robert Kramer, who was working on the 2-year-old’s case, told the news station. “That can have very significant implications. In the worst cases there has been deaths associated with these.”
The Doctors successfully removed the magnetic balls and the toddler was moving around normally within a few hours after the procedure, according to FOX31.
Buckyballs have previously injured and made children ill. The items were first recalled in 2013 after a number of cases of children swallowing them were reported. But then Courts reversed the U.S. Consumer and Product Safety Commision’s order last year.
“We are starting to see more of these high power magnet ingestions now that they are back on the market,” Kramer said.
Kyle McBrien said that he’s telling his daughter’s health scare to warn other parents about the dangerous items.
“It sounds as benign as humanly possible — magnets, you don’t think anything of it. I think just to understand exactly what the true risk is,” McBrien said.
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