Safety Alert: Button battery danger to toddlers

Health Watch: Button Battery Surgery: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Health Watch: Button Battery Dangers

Published : Thursday, 03 Jun 2010, 6:09 PM EDT

By: BETH GALVIN/myfoxatlanta

ATLANTA - Sixty seconds was all it took for 1-year-old Gabriel McNutt to take out the battery in his parents' remote control and swallow it. Six weeks later, the Stone Mountain toddler underwent surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to try to repair the damage left behind.

The toddler rolled into surgery at about 4:40 p.m. Thursday afternoon after being in the hospital for a month and a half and eating through a feeding tube.

McNutt's parents, Adam and Leslie have been praying a lot lately.

"We're grateful. We're thankful that we still have our son," said Adam McNutt.

On Thursday, the 13-month-old Gabriel, needed their prayers as he headed into surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egelston to repair the damage done by a little battery no bigger than a nickel.

"He started throwing up profusely and he wouldn't stop. And we thought at first, maybe he was just getting a stomach bug or something," said Leslie McNutt.

Instead, the toddler had gotten a hold of the remote control to his parents' DVD player and once he got it, he swallowed it.

"It only takes a minute. For our son, it took one minute to get the backing off the remote, and get the battery in his esophagus. And put him in the state that he was," said Adam McNutt.

"They put him [to sleep] and they used a scope to pull it out," said Leslie McNutt.

"The doctors told us 99 percent of the time, its recovery, there's no complications, no infections," said Adam McNutt.

But a week later, there were complications.

"As soon as we laid him down, he started choking. He wasn't able to breathe," recalled Adam McNutt.

The toddler was rushed back to the hospital in critical condition.

A follow-up test showed that the little battery had eaten a hole in Gabriel's esophagus, so that every time he tried to swallow food or water, he was choking.

Read more at MyFoxAtlanta

Facebook