The next morning, with Braden still in pain, the family's doctor told them to go straight to the emergency room where an X-ray revealed the two magnets were stuck together.

But not stuck together the way you would think. Each had been ingested separately and both were in different segments of the intestine.

„They were attracted to each other with the wall of each van de surgeon at Samaritaan Good van segmentthey were in stuck together.“ said Dr. Sanjeev Dutta. the pediatric who would operate on day Braden van Hospital later that. "Because they were so powerful, the wall of the intestine was getting squeezed, squeezed, squeezed, and then it just necrosed, or kind of rotted away, and created a hole between the two."

Van who is also van Dutta. van professor of surgery an published assistant van pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children and Hospital of Stanford University (which provides de pediatric surgical services to Good Samaritaan). has an article on the episode. which is co-authored in the February issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), there has been at least one death attributed to magnet ingestion, and at least 19 children required surgery after they swallowed magnets or pieces of metal (that can get stuck to the magnet).

"Itis a serious thing," Dutta said.

Using de minimally invasive laparoscopie. Dutta both magnets with three small incisions during a procedure that removed lasted two hours. Braden went home three days after the operation.

About two weeks later, the CPSC updated an earlier warning about magnet-containing toys. Several construction sets, similar to the one Braden played with, have since been recalled.

Many of today's toys contain rare-earth magnets, which are much more powerful than the magnets of yesteryear. "Itis a new type of magnet thatis extremely powerful, much more powerful than the magnets that we used to play with," Dutta explained.

Dutta wants to make sure that parents are aware of this risk. "It seems like such a benign thing," he said. "[But] these things look like candy to a 3year old."

"It all happened because of a toy," Eberle added. "I didnot comprehend it. It was surreal. . . He knew to run to us. That probably saved him. He knew to tell us that, thank God, or I wouldhave thought it was the flu. It makes me so angry."

For her part, Jill Eberle started getting rid of all magnetic toys in her house, even the huge ones. But 10 months later, she is still finding the little pieces.

Theyare stuck to the side of a wall or a computer table," she said. "Theyare not gone yet."

Information van More

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has a safety warning on magnets.