Pune: A nine-year-old boy narrowly escaped a life-threatening medical emergency after accidentally swallowing seven magnets recently.The child swallowed the magnets while playing at home. As the incident went unnoticed by both the child and his parents, medical help was not sought immediately. However, over the following week, the boy’s health deteriorated. He suffered from persistent vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and a total loss of appetite. “We had no idea when it happened,” the boy’s mother recalled. “He was just playing like children usually do. We didn’t realise he had swallowed anything until he started vomiting repeatedly and completely stopped eating.” The child was admitted to Surya Hospitals on Oct 24, nearly a week after the ingestion. The case was led by Prateek Agarwal, consultant paediatric gastroenterologist, who described the situation as high-risk. “Magnets are significantly more dangerous than other swallowed objects,” Agarwal said. “In this case, multiple magnets of varying sizes were found inside the patient’s body, some exceeding 2 cm in diameter.” Medical imaging revealed a complex situation. Agarwal first performed an endoscopy — using a flexible camera passed through the mouth — to successfully remove three magnets located in the stomach and upper intestine. However, four magnets had already travelled deeper into the intestines. Because they were magnetised, they had clamped together across the intestinal walls. “At that point, surgery was the only option,” said Agarwal. “If we had delayed any further, these magnets could have caused holes (perforations) in the intestine, leading to severe infection, sepsis, or even death.” The remaining four magnets were surgically removed, and the child was placed under close observation. He recovered remarkably well and was discharged in stable condition on November 1, 2025. A follow-up check a week later confirmed he had no further complications. Medical experts noted that the boy’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have contributed to the impulsive ingestion, a common factor in foreign-body incidents among children. While such incidents are most frequent in children between six months and five years old, this case highlights that older children remain at risk. Doctors emphasised that swallowing more than one magnet is a surgical emergency. Because magnets attract one another through the delicate tissue of the digestive tract, they can cause bowel perforation (holes in the intestinal wall), fistula formation (abnormal connections between loops of the intestine), obstruction and internal Bleeding and even sepsis, a life-threatening systemic infection.Medical experts urged parents to keep small magnets and magnet-based toys out of reach of children and to seek immediate emergency care if ingestion is even suspected. In such cases, hours can make the difference between a simple procedure and a fatal outcome.
