Two-year-old Brianna Florer’s family experienced a nightmare when their young daughter died after swallowing a button battery.
Now, they’re speaking out about the dangers of these common household items. Brianna’s parent’s nightmare began when they noticed that their daughter had developed a low-grade fever.
Before they knew it, Brianna was throwing up and had turned blue in the face. They called 911 and rushed the young girl to the hospital, but unfortunately, it was too late. After arriving at the hospital and performing an x-ray, doctors discovered the battery in Brianna’s stomach.
They immediately realized the young girl’s life was at risk, so she was immediately sent to a larger hospital so surgery could be done to remove the battery. It had already started to dissolve the flesh in her stomach.
Kent Vice, Brianna’s grandfather, said that doctors operated on her for two hours, but they weren’t able to stop the bleeding.
They believe that she died as a result of the battery eating through her carotid artery. When Brianna swallowed the battery, it would have immediately started producing an electronic current.
The reaction produces caustic soda, which is powerful enough to eat through the stomach and will lead to death within a few hours.
Brianna’s family warns others with small children to beware of these little energy producers that can have such a disastrous effect on a small child.
They encourage parents to tape the back of electronics that contain them because this isn’t the first time this has happened to a child. According to Daily Mail, from 2005 to 2014, there were 11,940 reported cases of kids swallowing button batteries.
