Magnet Dangers For Children

Karen: By the time they prepped her and got her into surgery, the magnets had moved and done considerable damage.

They went as fast as they could they couldn't have gone any quicker, but the magnets were going faster.

I kept thinking, has she died?

I'm Karen Teague.

We've got four children, so three older boys, and then Indy is our only daughter, who is our youngest.

India: I went to a birthday party where there were around six people, I think.

And there were these little magnet balls.

They're like a fidget toy almost.

And everyone was putting them on their tongue or on their lip as piercings. One of the girls, she accidentally swallowed one.

And I said, that's all right, I'll swallow two just to show that you'll be fine. Because she was freaking out.

It got to about 12:00 a.m and I was... I had a very sore stomach.

Karen: And she said, mum, I've got a really sore stomach and I just straight away went, 'whoa' because she's a tough kid and I thought, this is not good.

My gut feeling just said, go and get her.

So I got in the car, and I drove there.

So she got in the car, and she just said, mum, I just feel tired I just want to go to bed. I'll be fine and I was like, no, this is... I knew it was a life or death situation,

India: And then went straight to Middlemore where we then got directed to Starship.

Karen: So they took the x rays, and I went and sat with radiologists behind the screen because I wanted to see, and straight away, you could see two small little balls and I was like, oh, good, they're together.

You could see the lining of the stomach and the lining of the intestine and one magnet was in the stomach, and one magnet was in the intestine, and they joined...

Perforated bowel, perforated stomach, and that's serious.

India: Got rushed into emergency surgery, where I had the magnets taken out of me.

Karen: It was terrifying. The surgeon did say it would be a 1 hour surgery, and then I'd get a phone call, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

By the time they prepped her and got her into surgery, the magnets had moved and done considerable damage.

They went as fast as they could. They couldn't have gone any quicker, but the magnets were going faster.

So I sat there by myself for, I think, maybe 4 hours without a phone call. I was petrified. I kept thinking, has she died?

So you can imagine they had to find the magnets, then they had to repair all of the damage to this poor little child's stomach and intestine and then put everything back together.

Maybe... Hopefully, this story will help people be aware, especially if you might innocently have a toy like this in your house. These tiny, little high powered magnet balls.

So they're so high powered that they would have gone through any tissue in my child to get together, which is what they did.