Meredith DelPrete, 10, was at school one day and did something that she said is popular among kids her age: She pretended to have a pierced tongue. The Fairfax County fifth-grader took two magnetic balls from her pocket and placed one on top of her tongue and the other on the underside. The magnets, the size of a BB, are extremely powerful. They made it look like she had a stud. She opened her mouth to show a friend.
That’s when the silver orbs rolled off.
“I could feel them in the back of my throat. I tried to get them out, but I couldn’t. So I just swallowed them,” she said in an interview this week.
That accidental swallowing led to five days at Inova Fairfax Hospital, at least 10 X-rays, three CT scans and an endoscopy. Finally, on Jan. 20, a surgeon used a metal instrument to manipulate the magnets into her appendix, avoiding major surgery. He then removed her appendix, and the magnets, doctors said.
Doctors and consumer-product safety officials say the growing popularity of small, ball-bearing magnets pose a unique health hazard. Not only are they in toys, but they can also be found in jewelry and are marketed as desktop toys for adults. The magnets that Meredith received as a gift are a popular brand known as Buckyballs, which are 5mm in diameter. The labels warn to keep them away from children and not to put them in the nose or mouth; they say that if swallowed, magnets can cause serious injury or death.
Another 10-year-old was hospitalized at Inova Fairfax at the same time as Meredith: a boy who had swallowed three ball-bearing magnets. He passed them without incident, doctors said. On Wednesday, a third child, a 9-year-old boy, was taken to the hospital and transferred to Georgetown University Hospital, a doctor said. The boy’s condition could not be immediately determined.
Neither Meredith nor the other 10-year-old suffered serious injury, doctors said.
When two or more magnets are swallowed, they can attract each other internally, resulting in serious injuries, such as small holes in the stomach and intestines, intestinal blockage, blood poisoning and even death, according to safety and health officials.
In November, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued its first product-wide warning about ball-bearing magnets in adult products in a news release with manufacturers. The commission had received 22 reports of incidents involving the magnets from 2009 through October, it said.
The actual number is likely higher, doctors said. Inova Fairfax alone had three cases in less than a week.
Although parents of younger children are generally warned about the hazards of small toys, there is less awareness among adults — and even medical professionals — about the risk of magnets, especially when older children use them to emulate tongue or lip piercings, according to parents, doctors and safety officials.
“The potential for serious injury and death if multiple magnets are swallowed demands that parents and medical professionals be aware of this hidden hazard,” said commission Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. “This is not a children’s product and should be kept away from children.”
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