Magnets Can Kill

In July 2008, our daughter, Olivia almost died. She had found some magnets from a Supermag toy set and discovered that if she placed one magnet inside her cheek and the other on the outside of her cheek they would stick together through her skin–like a magnetic earring.

On this day, she was having fun with the experiment, dislodged the magnet inside her mouth and accidentally swallowed it. She came directly to me and told me what she had done. I had a talk with her about not putting things in her mouth and assumed that she would just pass the magnet. The next evening, she all of a sudden, doubled over in pain. She confessed that she had tried the experiment again and accidentally swallowed another magnet that morning (16 hours after the first ingestion). Within minutes she was vomitting and had flu-like symptoms. She was in contact with a child who had the flu the previous day so we assumed she had caught the flu from her. The following day, Olivia continued to show typical flu-like symptoms (sore stomach, lethargy, vomiting).

Her symptoms didn’t improve so the following day I took her to Emergency where we waited our two hours to see a doctor. At first nobody seemed to be overly concerned with our story. Once Olivia was seen and the doctor heard the story, x-rays were ordered and things progressed very quickly from there. According to the x-rays, the two magnets had connected and there was no certainty as to whether there was any skin caught between the magnets. This would be the danger since the magnets would pinch the tissue, cut off the circulation and perforate the intestines. We were fortunate to have a surgeon who had the knowledge of the dangers of magnets and ordered surgery immediately to remove the toy.

We were told that surgery would take only one hour. After almost two hours of surgery the surgeons came to us with shocked looks on their faces and explained what they had found. The magnets had punctured Olivia’s intestines eight times. They were amazed at the extent of the damage and the power of the magnets. The surgeons assured us that had Olivia not been treated at the time she would have died.

The magnets were removed, as well as her appendix, and the holes were repaired. She was kept sedated for two days and in hospital for four. We remind her all the time that she saved her own life by being truthful about swallowing the magnets.

There is no knowing how long Olivia would have lived had she not been forthright about swallowing the magnets. Unfortunately, younger children and toddlers without the language capacity to confess to such an action may not be as fortunate in a situation like this.

Magnetic toys have become much more powerful and have grown in popularity. With the volume of toys such as these on the market and in our homes it is inevitable that this type of incident will only increase in numbers.

Some of these magnetic toys out on the market now carry voluntary manufacturer’s warnings including one that states, “The ingestion of two or more magnets can cause severe intestinal infection and death.” These toys are sold in abundance at Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and other toy stores which are presumed to be innocent venues for selling “safe” products for our children. Until Health Canada is provided with a law to give them the authority to protect us against these hazardous toys the best we, as consumers, can do at this point, is avoid purchasing them and contact Health Canada if an incident occurs.

Currently Health Canada is in the process of putting forth a proposal to introduce safety requirements for magnetic toys. With your feedback they can be successful in this endeavour to keep unsafe magnetic toys off the shelves.

The public and other stakeholders are encouraged to submit comments, suggestions and evidence to support comments on this important toy safety initiative. Comments on the proposed requirements will be accepted until January 12th, 2010. Instructions for comment submission are provided here:

http://hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/legislation/consultation/2009toy-jouet/index-eng.php

This is a general link to the “Magnets in Toys” page from the Consumer
Product Safety website:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/child-enfant/toys-jouets/magnets-aimants-eng.php

Here is the link to our current consultation which proposes several new toy
safety requirements (magnets are addressed in Annex A):

http://hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/legislation/consultation/2009toy-jouet/consult-eng.php

Contact me at: os@magnetscankill.com