Curious schoolboy's emergency op after magnetising his intestines

Naomi Rivers had left seven-year-old Eli Jepson-Rivers watching TV in the living room when she suddenly heard him cry out and rush to her for help while choking.

The 35-year-old ushered him into the bathroom expecting him to be sick but was stunned when the lad looked at her in 'pure panic' and admitted he'd swallowed something.

Within 10 minutes of it happening, the marketing assistant drove him to an urgent care centre where Eli sheepishly confessed he'd swallowed two of the humbug-sized magnets.

An x-ray on May 11 showed the magnets, from popular game Kluster, clamped together in his stomach, before travelling through to his small intestine where they magnetised again and got stuck.

Doctors were concerned about them attaching on opposite sides of a vital organ or tissues and causing catastrophic damage.

Despite administering laxatives, trying an endoscopy and keyhole surgery, the surgeon was forced to perform open surgery and prise the magnets apart before fishing them out.

Having binned the game, mum-of-one is now sharing Eli's experience to ensure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Manufacturer Borderline Editions says the game isn't marketed towards children and displays a 14+ logo on its box.

On the website it states, 'magnets stuck to each other or to a metal object inside the human body can cause serious injury or death. If magnets are swallowed or inhaled, seek medical assistance immediately'.

Naomi, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, said: "I was busy in another room and Eli was watching telly. "He was trying to see where the magnets would magnetise.

"He was putting one on either side of his hand, he was putting them on different places of his body to see if they would stick together.

"Then he said 'I wanted to see if they would still stick if they had saliva in between' so he put one on the inside and outside of his mouth. "They connected and then he put them both in his mouth. He said that he got the urge to swallow.

"He was choking on it because they're big, they're just smaller than a mint humbug. "He was so panicked and he was really crying, it was really, really awful. I have a fear of choking anyway - it was my worst nightmare come to life.

"I thought he was going to be sick so I guided him to the bathroom and he looked at me in pure panic and he said 'no I swallowed it'. "When I said 'what have you swallowed?' He said 'a magnet'."

Naomi took him to the 24-hour urgent treatment centre at Grantham and District Hospital in Grantham, Lincolnshire. There, Eli admitted he'd swallowed two magnets and was whisked away for an x-ray, which revealed they were stuck together.

He was blue-lighted to Queens Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham where, after trying laxatives and an endoscopy, he underwent surgery on May 22 to remove them from his small intestine.

Naomi said: "When he said he'd swallowed two magnets a lot happened very, very quickly. "We were triaged within two minutes and was told because it's multiple magnets, there's a big risk.

"On the x-ray they could see the magnets were together. They can magnetise either side of something and cause a lot more damage, which is what ended up happening to Eli.

"The force of the magnets passing from his stomach into his small intestine caused them to briefly separate, come through one at a time, then magnetise around his duodenum. "They tried with multiple instruments and they couldn't get them so in the end opened him up 10cm.

"The surgeon said they were really difficult to pull apart and he had a job getting them out, so what we thought was going to be a couple hours of surgery turned into six." Now, Naomi has binned the magnet toy and warns parents against getting them for their kids.

Naomi said: "You want to encourage children to play with toys to get them off devices and then something like this happens. "My recommendation would be to not have these magnet toys round and educate children on how dangerous they are if swallowed.

"My advice to all parents if your child swallows magnets is to go to your urgent treatment centre and get them seen. "Multiple magnets are an emergency, they can be life threatening."

A Borderline Editions spokesman said: "Regarding the original Kluster, it is a board game not a toy intended for players aged 14 and over teenagers and adults.

"The game box clearly displays a '14+' logo and the following warning:

"This is not a toy! Recommended for ages 14+. WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD. This product contains magnets. Swallowed magnets can cause serious internal injury. Seek immediate medical attention if magnets are swallowed or inhaled.

"In addition, the box includes a leaflet in multiple languages highlighting the risk that small magnets may pose to young children if ingested.

"To our knowledge, this is the first such incident involving Kluster in the six years since the game was released on the market. "As the publisher, we cannot stress enough the importance of following the safety instructions and age restrictions."