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Button batteries very dangerous to young children

6:51 PM, Feb 6, 2013   |    comments
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ARVADA - Five-year-old Carter Beilman is just like most children his age. He loves to play with toys and he is inquisitive.

The combination of the two landed him in a hospital emergency room.

Carter was playing with one of his favorite toys, a Hexbug. It is a small bug-like toy that has a tiny battery in it that allows it scoot around like a bug. Carter figured out a way to remove that battery and later told his mom he wanted to see if the battery would fit into his nose.

It did, but then he couldn't get it out.

"He came over to me and said, 'mom I have a battery in my nose,'" Carter's mom Marigny Beilman said.

When they weren't able to get the battery out themselves, Marigny, a registered nurse, immediately called their family doctor who instructed them to go to the emergency room.

"Everybody just kept asking, 'well how long has it been in there? When did this happen?'" says Beilman.

The reason for those questions is very simple.

"If they swallow or put a battery in their nose, or at least you think they did, you need to act right away. Within three hours it can start eating away at the tissue and causing an ulcer. Within 24 hours it can hit the bone and kill the bone. So this is what we call a medical emergency," 9 Health Reporter Dr. John Torres said.

Doctors were able to remove the battery from Carter's nose.

"At just barely two hours, it had already started to corrode in his nose and I was just shocked at that point," Beilman said. "The doctor told me that they had actually had a three-year-old die after ingesting a battery."

"It can cause death, and it has caused death," Dr. Torres said.

For more information on the dangers of button batteries and safety tips visit this Denver Health link.

(KUSA-TV © 2013 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

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