Button batteries - which are used in everything from car fobs to musical greeting cards - may look harmless. But injuries related to these batteries have increased dramatically in recent years, with an estimated 30,000 ingestions each year.
MTN News talked with a Missoula mom whose son swallowed a button battery and who wants to share the dangers she learned firsthand.
Cooper Farago, an active five-year-old boy who lives in Missoula, recently swallowed a button battery on his way to school. His mom Kelsey explained the events of that morning.
“It was a pretty typical chaotic Monday after easter, they were driving and got his big brothers off to school. we were maybe two minutes away from school and I heard him make a noise, kind of like a gasping noise. and I asked him ‘are you ok?’ and he said I swallowed a magnet... so we rushed him to the ER at Community and immediately took an x-ray and they said that’s not a magnet, that’s a button battery,” Farago said.
Button batteries are found in dozens of household items that aren’t meant for young children. But Kelsey remembered a story she had once seen on social media of a young girl named Reese.
“I knew button batteries were really dangerous because I saw a story of this little girl on social media that had unfortunately died from swallowing a button battery, so I knew it was pretty serious,” Kelsey said.
Trista Hamsmith recalled the events that happened to her, 18-month-old Reese, in 2020 when they lived in Lubbock, Texas.
“One morning after we woke up, we realized Reese maybe had a cold, was just snotty, yucky and not her usual self. We made an appointment with our pediatrician where she was diagnosed with croup. Croup is a common misdiagnosis for button battery ingestion. We had never heard of button battery ingestion. It wasn’t until the following day that I realized there was a button battery missing,” Trista Hamsmith said.
Reese fought for her life for seven weeks, but in December 2020, Reese lost her fight and passed away.
To honor her daughter and raise awareness about the dangers in the household, Tristia created Reese's Purpose (website), a non-profit whose goal is to help families with medical costs and also pass legislation to prevent battery-related deaths.
Hamsmith set off and started calling Senators and Representatives in Washington, DC, to pass what is now known as Reese's law. The law has three prongs. The first is securing the batteries in products, the second is to have stronger warning labels and the third is to have child-resistant packaging.
When it comes to the dangers of batteries, Kelsey explained what happens when the battery enters the child's mouth.
“Kid's esophagus' are very very small, that’s obviously one part of it that’s dangerous. It can get stuck; it can get lodged — just a general choking hazard. It’s also bad because when you swallow it a chemical reaction happens within your body and literally starts foaming and bubbling and it essentially burns it," Kelsey explained. "When they scooped him, they took pictures going all the way down until they removed it and pulled it up. and you can see the track marks of where it burned him going down his throat."
Cooper’s brothers attend Hellgate Elementary School and after hearing Cooper’s story the school will be doing a demonstration with deli meat in the kindergarten and first-grade classrooms starting next week.
If your child swallows a battery, getting your child to the ER and getting medical attention immediately could help prevent severe burning. If a parent finds themselves in this situation, having a child that is a year or older shallow honey can help coat the battery and slow the burning down. Burning through a child's trachea or esophagus can occur within two hours.
National Button Battery Awareness Day is June 12.
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