BILLINGS — We all love small stocking stuffers and light-up toys, especially on Christmas morning. While they can be fun, toys can pose a serious threat if ingested, which is what happened to Luke McMullian.
Button batteries, such as the ones pictured above, or a Polly Pocket doll, pictured below, may not seem like big threats.
But both items have warning labels for a reason.
"It's really normal for little kids to explore their environment by picking things up and putting them in their mouths. No matter how diligent you are as a parent, there's going to be times that kids put things in their mouth," said Dr. Douglas Barnhart of Intermountain Health, who treated young Luke in Utah.
Luke was taken to the Intermountain campus in Utah two years ago when he ingested a button battery at the age of one.
"It was heartbreaking, and it still is, even just looking back," said Luke's mother, Erica McMullian.
Luke suffered a long-term injury after swallowing the tiny battery.
"I feel like we missed a lot of life in him growing up in just those few years, just with all the hospitals, and surgeries, and everything we had to go through," Erica said.
The battery fell off of one of his toys. The battery never entered his stomach, and for several weeks it was sitting in his throat, ultimately burning a large hole in his esophagus.
His family was originally told from previous doctors that Luke's inability to swallow whole foods and frequent vomiting was likely due to acid re-flux. However, Erica knew something else was likely wrong.
Fortunately, the battery had a small piece of black tape on its back side. Erica said this piece of tape saved his life because it protected one side of his throat from the battery acid. He now gets regular treatments to stretch his esophagus.
"My kids now know, we don't buy things with button batteries," she said.
"We need to be particularly very careful with button batteries as we either put them in and take them out of devices, that we dispose of them in a way that kids can't get them," Barnhart said on Thursday.
Barnhart, who works for Intermountain in Billings and Utah, has worked with tiny batteries and other small toys that kids swallow. He wants to warn parents about toys such as water beads and small magnets, and he encourages parents to buy their children helmets for riding bikes or tricycles.
Barnhart said the holidays become a busy time of year as new toys are introduced.
Cases like Luke's are the reason that Duracell's button batteries have a protective bitter coating, and that small toys, such as Polly Pockets have a warning label for children under the age of four.
"Just educating yourself and other people is what's going to help the most," Erica said.
