40 Magnets Removed

The child arrived in the ER suffering from multiple vomiting attacks and pain in his abdomen. An x-ray revealed a chain, but as no-one knew he had swallowed the magnets, doctors thought it was a chain of beads. The child was hospitalized in Pediatrics C, headed by Dr. Irit Krause, to wait for the beads to be expelled naturally from the child’s body. In a follow-up x-ray, the beads had not moved as anticipated, raising fears that the beads might be magnets. Due to the potential life-threatening situation, the child underwent emergency surgery.

The operation was conducted by surgeons, Dr. Adriana Nika and Dr. Elana Deluggy, Deputy Director of the Surgical Department, and anesthetist Dr. Yelena Sanko together with the nursing staff, Vladimir Zvorovsky and Olga Yarsko. After the magnets were removed, another x-ray confirmed that all had been taken out. The toddler recovered well following the surgery.

Dr. Nika noted that “the greatest danger in swallowing a number of magnets is that the magnetic force will pull at different parts of the colon cutting off sections. In the toddler’s case, the magnets caused a perforation in the colon but the speedy surgery prevented serious injury that could have led to a severe infection in the abdomen. These magnets must be kept away from small children, and in any case of suspected swallowing, the child should be brought to the hospital immediately.”