Brandon Bruski, 9, holds dozens of Buckyballs on Thursday, April 11, 2013 in Crystal Lake, Illinois. In January, Brandon accidentally swallowed two balls from this set of the small magnetic desk toys. The magnets left Brandon with a small and large intestine bound together. Emergency surgery was required.
But those involving magnets — mostly brightly coloured, matchstick-like pieces found in building sets — jumped five fold, they reported.“This was either laparoscopy — also known as ‘key-hole’ surgery — or open abdominal surgery to retrieve the magnets from the intestine,” Hemanshoo Thakkar, a paediatric surgeon at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, told AFP.
In Britain, regulations require that all magnetic toys be accompanied by a warning notice, but most manufacturers do not display them prominently enough, the authors wrote.