A two-year-old girl in Britain died after swallowing a remote control battery that burned a hole in her esophagus.
The Sun reports that, back in May, Harper-Lee Fanthorpe died at a hospital after acid from the battery she swallowed scorched its way through her throat and a major artery. Her mom, Stacey Nicklin, went on BBC Breakfast in an effort to raise awareness to other parents.
Nicklin says she didn’t know her daughter had ingested anything before coming across a remote control without a battery in her bedroom.
“It’s about awareness. If I can save one child or a hundred, then I’ve promised my baby I’ve done what I’ve done,” said Nicklin. “They need to be more secure. Parents need to check. Just check, check, check.”
She says her daughter had her head “suddenly” go “backward,” before she began to throw up blood.
“She wasn’t responding. She just went very wheezy, her eyes just closed and she couldn’t talk back to me, like she wasn’t there,” Nicklin said.
Her daughter was taken to the hospital to undergo surgery. The mother adds that “Halfway through her surgery, the surgeon come out and told me that they think she’s swallowed a button battery.”
Harper-Lee’s death was officially attributed to a cardiac arrhythmia she suffered during surgery. It was ruled an accident.
Dr. Anna Pigott, a consulting pediatrician at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, says there have been several instances of serious injury/death because of children swallowing batteries in the country, according to The New York Post. Adding to that, North Staffordshire senior coroner Andrew Barkley says “There is a very clear concern about this in public health. It has affected lots of children.”
