Chinese toddler has surgery to remove 21 magnetic beads from his stomach
Youngster in agony after swallowing tiny balls from his brother’s toy which formed a ring of metal inside his body
A toddler from northern China had to travel 300km to Beijing earlier this month to undergo emergency surgery after swallowing handfuls of tiny magnetic beads from a child’s toy.
The parents of the 14-month-old boy, from the coastal city of Qinhuangdao in Hebei province, took the drastic action after he developed a fever and began vomiting, Beijing Morning Post reported.
Doctors at the family’s local hospital identified the problem but were unable to perform the necessary procedure, so the youngster was referred to Beijing Children’s Hospital on May 11, the report said.
Liu Tingting, head of emergency surgery at the hospital, was quoted as saying that the boy, who was not named, had probably had the metallic beads in his stomach for four or five days, and was clearly in agony.
“The beads formed a ring in his stomach, and although we got them all out during the operation, the baby suffered a lot of pain,” she said.
