A TODDLER is lucky to be alive after swallowing 19 magnetic metal beads from a children’s toy.
Two-year-old Rheon Flowers had to have part of his bowel removed during a seven-hour emergency surgery and now has a stoma bag.
Cassie DinhamRheon Flowers in hospital with a stoma bag after emergency surgery last week[/caption]
Cassie DinhamThe magnetic beads had joined together in his small intestine[/caption]
Cassie DinhamRheon with mum Cassie Dinham before he became ill[/caption]
Mum Cassie Dinham, whose son has epilepsy, was told if he had gone ahead with a scheduled MRI the beads would have been violently drawn out of his body and killed him.
Cassie, 34, had bought the game for her 13-year-old daughter off Amazon, and Rheon – unknowingly to her – had been ingesting the beads.
Speaking to The Sun from her son’s hospital bedside, she said: “They need to ban them because they’re so dangerous.”
What are magnetic beads?
Magnetic beads for children are available online and are usually advertised as brain teasers.
They can be made into different shapes, including pyramids and cubes, as well as bracelets.
One such product found by The Sun was available on Amazon for £12.99 and contained more than 200 magnetic rainbow beads.
The manufacturer’s minimum age recommendation was 18 months.
Rheon had been suffering with a high temperature when mum-of-four Cassie took him to the GP, where he was prescribed antibiotics.
But after completing the course of tablets, he was no better and had become lethargic.
Cassie said his epilepsy medication usually makes him hyper, but all he wanted to do was sleep.
She took him to hospital on February 25 by chance due to a chronic constipation condition he has suffered with since birth, but doctors were confused as to why he was so ill.
His blood tests came back fine and it was “a bit of a baffle as to what was going on” said Cassie, from London.
Doctors eventually did an X-ray and spotted what appeared to be a bracelet in Rheon’s small intestine.
Cassie said: “I was thinking how has he managed to swallow a bracelet?
“I didn’t even have a clue. Then the surgeon asked, by any chance, could they be magnetic balls – and it just clicked, I was like oh my God.”
She added: “They found 19 in total. Where they’re magnetic they’d joined up into a circle. So it basically twisted his whole small intestine.”
Cassie said she has no idea how long the beads had been inside Rheon – but said surgeons told her they’d once removed 76 from a different child.
The tot had been due to have an MRI scan the week before but it had been postponed.
Campaign to ban magnetic beads
DOZENS of children have been left needing life-saving surgery after swallowing small magnets as the NHS calls for a ban on the toys.
When children swallow magnets, they fuse in their intestines or bowels and squeeze off the blood supply, causing significant damage, health officials have warned in 2021.
At least 65 children have been admitted to hospital for urgent surgery in England after swallowing magnets in the three years up to that point.
The NHS has now issued a national patient safety alert – advising every hospital and GP that these cases should be treated as an emergency.
Professor Simon Kenny, NHS England national clinical director for children and young people, said: “Magnets are a source of fascination for children, and magnetic toys can look like a cheap and cheerful way of occupying the kids, but ultimately they aren’t safe and shouldn’t be for sale.”
“If it didn’t get cancelled, I wouldn’t have my son here right now – it would have killed him, they would have just come straight out of him,” Cassie said.
The mum went on to say the magnetic beads are used in sensory exercises for autistic children.
And she understands there is a trend on TikTok for teenagers to put them on their tongue as if they have piercing, but some have been accidentally ingested.
She was told those in medical profession have been trying to ban them for some time.
Describing Rheon’s surgery, Cassie explained: “It’s a massive operation. They have to take out the whole bowel to clear it out.
“When the metal balls are together they perforate holes in the bowel as well, which could be life threatening.
“They had to remove them straight away because you can get lead poisoning as well.”
She said she was “in pieces” as she waited for Rheon to come out of the seven-hour surgery.
“They originally said it would take about an hour and a half but because he had other issues due to his chronic constipation, they had to do a lot of work on the bowels to remove everything.”
She added that the beads had affected the top of his colon and they had “fused” it together.
“They had to cut that part out and remove that, and remove any parts that the balls had affected.”
Cassie is hopeful Rheon can return home over the weekend but has had to have a stoma bag installed, which may well be permanent.
“There will be long term lasting damage,” she explained. “He’ll have problems with his bowels for the rest of his life, bless him.”
She added: “It could have been a lot worse. We could have lost him. I’m just so grateful that they listened to my concerns about his constipation and they did an X-ray because otherwise we’d probably never have found them until now.”
Referring to the stoma bag, she said: “He’s a bit scared of it but it’s about me showing him that I’m not scared and I’m okay with it and I’m comfortable with it and that will help him focus.
“He is a bit confused because he can see the stuff that’s coming out of it when it’s getting cleaned.
“It’s something he needs to adapt to. It’s going to be life changing for us all. Me and my family need to adapt to his care now.”
She said there’s a good chance children will have ingested some of the magnetic beads and have them in their system without their parents knowing.
Cassie explained that the packaging said they weren’t suitable for young children, but says they should be banned outright.
“There’s no warning that they could be swallowed and the damage they can do if they’re ingested.
“They need to be banned completely.”
The Sun has contacted Amazon for comment.
Why would you need a stoma bag?
A COLOSTOMY is an operation on the colon – a part of the bowel.
It diverts one end of the colon through an opening in the tummy, known as the stoma.
This means that the person can no longer pass poo.
The poo is instead collected in a stoma bag, which is placed over the opening.
Many people have to undergo a colostomy due to illness.
These can include:
bowel cancer and other forms of cancer
ulcerative colitis
Crohn’s disease
diverticulitis
A stoma may also be necessary due to genetic disorders, birth abnormalities, after trauma to the abdomen, and following radiotherapy.
Cassie DinhamRheon had to have part of his bowels removed during the seven-hour surgery[/caption]
Cassie DinhamCassie is hopeful the tot can return home this weekend[/caption]
Cassie DinhamRheon will have issues with his bowels for the rest of his life[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
