Swallowed batteries
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Button batteries are good for electronics but very bad for kids. Researchers report more than 5,500 battery-related emergency department visits in 2009 by people under age 18. Children ages 5 and under accounted for more than three quarters of them.
Button batteries can burn a hole in the esophagus in less than two hours. At the Center for Injury Research and Policy of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Gary Smith:
"If a parent thinks that their young child has swallowed a button battery, they need to go immediately to the emergency department to have an X-ray done. They need to tell them that they think it's a button battery because the clock is ticking."
The study in the journal Pediatrics was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.