This is a very sad, tragic story. If you have young children, grandkids please read.

[Fla Dem]

Her daughter swallowed a button battery and died. Now this mom is taking action.
Meghan Holohan 2 hrs ago

TODAY

At the end of October, a spunky 17-month-old named Reese started wheezing. Her mother, Trista Hamsmith, took the congested, stuffy toddler to the pediatrician, who said it was likely croup.

Soon afterward, the concerned mom noticed that a button battery was missing from a remote control. Gripped with dread, the Hamsmith family raced to the local emergency room with Reese. That’s when they learned devastating news: Reese had swallowed the tiny battery, and it had caused a hole in her esophagus.

“Once the battery is ingested, it starts to erode and it starts to burn,” Hamsmith, 39, of Lubbock, Texas, told TODAY Parents. “Button battery ingestion is so much more common that people realize.”

Reese never recovered. She died on Dec. 17, 2020.

“This story needs to be told,” Reese’s mother said. “It didn’t have to happen.”

Break.........

Dr. Emily Durkin, who did not treat Reese, said that swallowing button batteries can cause serious injuries for some children, especially if the batteries become lodged in the esophagus. The esophagus has two areas that are narrow, at the upper and lower end, and button batteries often get trapped there.

“If you get a narrow, flat, pancake-like button battery that gets stuck at one of these natural narrowings, then the front wall of the esophagus collapses against the button battery and the back wall,” said Durkin, medical director of children’s surgery at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “(This) completes that circuit, and electric current actually flows through the esophageal tissues. And when that happens, it starts to kill the tissues at the burn.”

More.........

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/her-daughter-swallowed-a-button-battery-and-died-now-this-mom-is-taking-action/ar-BB1e7WBU?ocid=U452DHP&li=BBnbfcL

[secondwind]

1. Thanks, FlaDem..

Passed this on to Roger’s son..... 💕

[magicarpet]

2. Oh my,... isn't that horrific....

[SharonClark]

3. How horrible for that poor child and her parents.

I’m glad they’re sharing their incredible sad story with others.

[pansypoo53219]

4. hard to swallow a AA battery.

[Blue_true]

7. There are some electronic devices that have tiny button style batteries.

It may sound harsh of me, but I believe the parents are at fault for leaving such a thing in the reach of a young child. Toddlers are going to put things in their mouth, parents need to make sure that things like chemicals, electronics, cosmetics, electrical outlets, toilet bowls (latch closed the seat cover), washing and drying machines, can to be easily assessed by young children.

[renate]

10. I hope they don't blame the doctor at least

I was a helicopter parent in terms of safety... not proud of it, but I was. (It was exhausting and excessive and I don’t recommend it.)

Yet there was a time my barely-crawling son got the rubber end of a door stopper in his mouth—it must have been in the blink of an eye because I NEVER left him unsupervised for an instant—and I had no idea until I got him out of the car 15 or so minutes later.

No blame to the parents from me. And I hope they aren’t upset with the doctor for diagnosing a horse instead of a zebra.

[Blue_true]

11. I am not a parent, so you know more about that than me.

But my approach would be to watch babies and toddlers like a hawk and then start listening up once they reach 5 years old, a time when they would understand safety directives better. Beyond 6 years old, I would work with them to help them understand risks, but count on their on the spot decision making. Maybe that view is naive, but that is how I would try to parent.

You have no reason to not be proud about how you chose to raise your kid(s), they weren’t born with a parenting manual attached to them, so every decision you made about their safety was singularly unique decision, a person is always going to have 20/20 hindsight perspective in such situations.

[renate]

13. Thank you!

[MustLoveBeagles]

5. That poor family

[Blue_true]

6. Many years ago, I had a friend who had a newborn.

When the baby started crawling, his Mom child proofed everything, she noticed anything that could harm him and proofed. They once visited my house and as soon as she stepped into the place, she actually started looking for and removing child hazards in my home, it was something to watch.

I honestly believe that parents should keep things that are harmful to kids well out of their reach, all it takes are covers for electrical outlets, latches for toilet seats, putting in shelves to put things like cleaning agents and remotes onto (don’t leave them in low cabinets or on sofas).

[IbogaProject]

8. lithium batteries need copious warnings

anything with lithium batteries need copious warnings. Some of my blood sugar meters use those, and I much prefer ones that use standard AA batteries.

[pansypoo53219]

9. why can't we have play pens like we used to?!?

[CabalPowered]

12. This and magnets

Scare me stiff with a toddler in the house.

[radius777]

14. Terrible. They should coat the batteries with a bitterant,

which would make a child spit it out before having the chance to ingest it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitterant
A bitterant (or bittering agent) is a chemical that is added to a product to make it smell or taste bitter. Bitterants are commonly used as aversive agents to discourage the inhalation or ingestion of toxic substances.
The addition of a bitterant to ethanol denatures the product.
Bitterants are used in antifreeze to prevent pet and child poisonings. It is required by law in some places (France, Oregon, etc.).
Gas dusters often use a bitterant to discourage inhalant abuse, although this can cause problems for legitimate users. The bitterant not only leaves a bitter flavor in the air, but also leaves a bitter residue on objects, like screens and keyboards, that may transfer to hands and cause problems (such as when eating).
Game cartridges for the Nintendo Switch are coated with denatonium as a safety feature to deter small children from ingesting them.
Some button cell batteries manufactured by Duracell are coated with a bitterant to discourage accidental ingestion by children.

[BGBD]

15. My son actually swallowed one of these

when he was around 4 years old or so.

It was on a Friday night after we had come home from a football game. We were watching TV and he was in his room playing. He came into the room and told me that he'd swallowed something. We asked him what it was and he couldn't explain it. He got a regular battery and was pointing to the end of it. We couldn't understand at first, knowing there was no way he could have swallowed a AA battery. Then we figured out what he meant, he has swallowed a button batter than came out of a little remote control he had in his room for his TV.

We pretty quickly realized how dangerous it was and took him straight to the hospital. They did an x-ray and you could see the battery as a very bright halo in his stomach.

That was the good news, it was in his stomach. At that point, the danger is essentially over. They said since it was in his stomach there was nothing that needed to be done. The stomach acid would cause it to corrode and coat it, and it would pass through the rest of his digestive system without issue. We had to "monitor" his excrement for the next few days to note when it came out. That was pretty gross, but if you ever need to do it the best option is to use a big ziplock bag. Just put it in there, seal it up, and start smushing to see if anything is in it. It did pass after 2 or 3 days of that.

The one he swallowed was a small one. It was probably the size of a button on a playstation controller. The ones that are most dangerous are the ones more the size of a nickel or maybe a quarter. They are small enough to swallow but too large to pass through the esophagus. They get stuck and create a circuit between the two sides of the esophagus, leading to catastrophic injuries in a very short time. I think the research I saw said 2 hours was enough time to lead to complete tissue death. Oh, and even a "dead" battery has enough juice left to do damage like this.

So, these things are super dangerous because of that. If you have any in your home, such as in a remote, either keep them out of their reach or do something drastic, like supergluing the back on, to make sure they can't get them out.

[malaise]

16. Horrific story

Sending this to family and friemds