Families are being urged to beware of a frightening social media craze which can burn holes in children’s bowels and leave them dependent on stoma bags for life.
Pressure is mounting for tighter rules over the sale of magnetic toys including balls and beads which are increasingly putting in peril youngsters who swallow them.
Online petitions have been launched against the products, as campaigners said that unscrupulous internet sellers were operating in an unregulated ‘Wild West’.
The demands come after cases raised by British parents whose children have been left with severe and lasting health problems – after latching on to what has been compared to ‘piercing’ and has been encouraged by social media posts and videos.
Concerns have been raised about a social media trend in which youngsters film themselves and pretend they have facial piercings before ingesting magnets – prompting a coroner to warn about the dangers following the death of eight-year-old schoolboy Rhys Millum, from Harrogate in North Yorkshire.
It has been revealed this week how a baby from Northamptonshire accidentally swallowed magnets from a toy and almost died while needing an operation to remove them from her body.
Medics had to remove part of one-year-old Araya Whateley’s bowel during seven-hour emergency surgery – and the tot now has a stoma bag.
The magnetic beads belonged to Araya’s nine-year-old sister Isla who had received them from a classmate in a ‘school swapsie’.
Consumer group Which? says more than 90 per cent of such magnetic toys bought through online marketplaces should not be sold legally in Britain – and more than half present a risk to children playing with them.
A mother of a 12-year-old boy from Hertfordshire has revealed how he nearly died after magnets from so-called ‘fidget toys’ burned through his bowels, the Sun reported.
Hannah Amer told of rushing her son Bobby to hospital, saying: ‘The doctor came out and said the magnets were pulling all the way through the lining of the bowel.
‘Thank God I kicked off. For one, he might not have made it if it had been a couple more hours. But for two, he could have ended up with a stoma bag.
‘It is still happening though and it is crazy. Parents come to me all the time and say, “Oh my God, a similar thing happened to us.”
‘Another mum’s daughter swallowed them – even some people’s pets have swallowed them.
‘My son said his friends stuck them to the top and bottom of their eyebrows, put them on their tongue and one up their nose as well. It is just so dangerous.’
Also raising the alert is Araya Whateley’s mother Hannah, 29, had no idea her daughter was ingesting the beads after they had been left on the back seat of the family’s car.
She only realised something was seriously wrong when Araya started throwing up on February 21, before the girl was rushed to Northampton General Hospital and initially treated for gastroenteritis.
Araya was discharged but needed returning to A&E when she started choking in the hospital car park.
An X-ray revealed she had swallowed several balls cluttering in her stomach and the child was transferred to Leicester Royal Infirmary.
Speaking from her daughter’s hospital bedside, Hannah Whateley said: ‘There were six magnets in total which were stuck together in a clump.
‘The magnets have caused Araya’s intestine to close and it killed that part of her bowel, which was starving her.
‘There was another hole that needed repairing on the other side of her intestine, which is attempting to be done using a stoma bag.’
Ms Whateley is now joining calls for restrictions on the sale of such toys containing magnets, saying: ‘I don’t want anyone to go through this, it is every parent’s worst nightmare.
‘These awful things need to be banned immediately before any other children are hospitalised.’
Araya is due to have a total parenteral nutrition (TPN) line fitted – a catheter that will deliver nutrition into her bloodstream as she has not been able to eat anything.
Hannah, a care worker, said: ‘You don’t realise the damage magnetic sculpting balls are capable of.
‘The doctor said Araya’s very lucky and he’s seen worst case scenarios over the past decade. It can cause catastrophic damage.’
previously told how a five-year-old boy was lucky to be alive after swallowing 52 magnets.
Jude Foley, from Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, needed to have the magnetic beads removed by emergency surgery after putting a toy in his mouth.
After he underwent emergency surgery to remove his appendix and had his bowel cut in five places where the magnets were trapped, his mother Lyndsey Foley said: ‘If you’ve got these beads at home, remove them. They are so dangerous.’
Also among those campaigning against such products – and tighter regulation of sellers – is the Child Accident Prevention Trust.
The organisation today described too many online marketplaces of operating in a ‘Wild West’ of danger.
Pamela Prentice, a spokesperson for the charity, told : ‘We know from clinicians that they’re seeing lots more cases, while we’re waiting for a study to know the full scale of the problem.
‘The incidents we’ve seen already are probably just the tip of the iceberg. Online marketplaces are awash with products that don’t meet toy safety standards and have a flux far greater than they should have.’
‘Flux’ is a term used judging an item’s magnetic force, with concerns raised about the prospect of magnets joining together and doing damage if ingested by children.
A government report has said: ‘It is possible to still suffer harm in relation to ingesting two or more weak magnets with a flux of less than 50 kG2mm2.’
Ms Prentice added: ‘We’re seeing toys that have ten times that amount of flux.
‘The internet is a bit of a Wild West in terms of the products out there. There are reputable retailers who have to meet the safety standards – but there are many online marketplaces who certainly don’t do so.
‘Parents should stick to products from reputable retailers and, if you’re not sure, it’s not worth the risk of buying if you’ve got young children – especially under threes, where everything tends to go in their mouths.’
Prof Simon Kenny, paediatric surgeon and national clinical director for children and young people at NHS England, said: ‘I would urge parents to be aware of the dangers associated with magnetic toys.
‘But ultimately, the only way we can prevent future incidents is to stop these items being sold all together.’
A study published by consumer watchdog Which? last December reported on the scale of potentially hazardous toys available for sale across the internet.
The products found online by researchers included a magnetic fishing set from which the magnets detached during testing, bought from an eBay seller.
Which? described its ‘tiny’ magnets as ‘a choking hazard’ – warning they ‘could seriously hurt any child who swallowed them’.
Rocio Concha, Which?’s director of policy and advocacy, today told : ‘Our research shows it’s frighteningly easy to find dangerous toys for sale on some of the world’s most popular online marketplaces – including toys with magnets.
‘We would recommend that shoppers be careful about buying unbranded toys on online marketplaces, as it is hard to have confidence that they will meet UK safety standards set in law to protect consumers.
“The UK government must act fast and use its Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to put much greater legal responsibility on online marketplaces for keeping unsafe items off their platforms.
‘This must include tough enforcement action, such as heavy fines, if they breach the rules.’
If a child swallows the small balls, magnets effectively burn holes in their intestines or bowels.
The magnets stick together internally and through organs and tissues, and can cut off blood supply causing tissue to die.
They are much more complex than button batteries to extract.
The child will need emergency surgery, then, depending on the severity of the injuries, they may need numerous operations, bowel resection and time in paediatric intensive care.
Source: Child Accident Prevent Trust
‘If you suspect that your child has swallowed a magnet, take them to A&E and let staff know.’
A coroner told last February how an eight-year-old boy killed by swallowing ten magnets may have been following a deadly social media craze.
Rhys Millum, described as a ‘live-wire’ and ‘daredevil’, died after his small intestine was perforated by ten 3mm silver spherical magnets.
They had all stuck together in a 30mm long row in his bowel.
He did not tell anyone he had swallowed the tiny balls – 10 days after a discussion with his brother about boosting social media profiles by performing daredevil stunts.
But ‘the reality of what was inside him’ was only revealed by a full body CT scan several days after his life was cut tragically short, a coroner said.
His mother Andrea Boyd, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, said that following his tragic death the family had discussed seeing the magnets featured on social media as a ‘fake piercing challenge’ where the person puts one magnet on the outside of the cheek and the other on the inside of the cheek.
Recording a misadventure conclusion at Northallerton Coroner’s Court, coroner, Mrs Catherine Cundy said: ‘I do note they (the police) found a video of him playing with his brother showing Rhys was a least aware of the concept of social media challenges and would have had had access to social media platforms like YouTube and may have seen people using magnets in this way.
‘This was a wholly tragic series of events. Rhys did not understand the dangers of swallowing these magnets and did not tell anyone he had swallowed them or link them to his symptoms.
‘I know these magnetic balls are legal to sell. I hope the tragedy of Rhys’s death will at least highlight the dangers particularly to children who might swallow them, accidentally or deliberately, without being aware of the dangers.’
Another mother previously told how her two-year-old daughter ‘almost died’ from swallowing six magnetic ‘fidget’ balls which burned four holes in her bowel.
Jade Berriman, 31, from Hull, said her toddler Meliyah-Jayd had to undergo emergency surgery when her body began to ‘poison’ itself after ingesting the 4mm beads.
Ms Berriman feared her little girl was going to die when she started vomiting litres of dark green liquid, saying: ‘It was horrible, and such an awful feeling. It was like a piece of me inside was leaving my body.
‘Don’t buy these metal balls. I wish I had never bought them for my son.
‘Of course, I am partly to blame for purchasing these for my older children and she must have swallowed them when I had my back turned for a second but I want to raise awareness on how dangerous these tiny little balls can be.’
Meanwhile, a 12-year-old schoolboy from Prestwich in Greater Manchester underwent life-saving surgery after swallowing 54 toy magnets in what was described as part of an ‘experiment’.
Rhiley Morrison ate the magnetic balls across two separate occasions to see whether they would make metal objects stick to his stomach.
He was also curious about what they would look like when he passed them.
But when the metal balls had still not appeared four days later he told to his mother Paige Ward, 30, that he had swallowed two ‘by accident’.
She rushed him to hospital where doctors carried out an X-ray and were stunned to discover 54 of the powerful magnet toys in his stomach and bowel.
Doctors feared the magnets might burn through tissue or vital organs, which could have caused potentially fatal internal damage.
They rushed Rhiley into surgery where the objects were scooped out during a six-hour operation.
His mother shared details of 16-day hospital ordeal in a bid to educate parents about the potential dangers of magnetic ball toys – while urging the items to be binned before such scares happen again.
She said: ‘I don’t want other kids or parents going through that. When he did it I thought it was just him, he’s just been silly and done it, but the surgeon said they see this all the time.
‘Magnets aren’t toys, they shouldn’t be sold as toys. My message to other parents is to just put them in the bin, don’t buy them in the first place.
‘I don’t care how nice they look and how many children ask for them because they’re ‘cool’, they’re just not worth it.
‘The surgeon said that if Rhiley didn’t tell me that day he’d swallowed the magnets he could have died.
‘They could have clashed and ripped his bowel and he could have ended up with sepsis. Rhiley was lucky but some kids aren’t and won’t be.