The Assuta Ashdod public hospital reported Wednesday morning that in the past four days, four children were evacuated after carrying out foreign objects. Among them, game chain parts are made of magnets and silver coins. While two of the children were discharged within four hours, two others (ages 4 and 7) required emergency surgery due to the severity of their condition.
Since Saturday, four children aged 4-10 have been brought to the hospital's emergency room one by one, suffering from restlessness and vomiting. Tests conducted by the medical staff found that they all had similar stories: swallowing foreign objects, game parts, chains, magnets and silver coins. These cases join another incident involving a 6-year-old boy reported by Israel Hayom, who is hospitalized in the hospital's intensive care unit after choking on candy.
Child Safety Week: 4 children required medical attention within 4 days after swallowing foreign objects | Spokesperson for Assuta Ashdod Hospital
In two of the cases, there was no need for surgical intervention, and after appropriate treatment, the children were discharged. In contrast, X-rays of a 7-year-old girl showed that the parts of the game she swallowed settled in her intestine, and even after 72 hours of treatment, there was no progress in attempts to extract the game parts from her body. In another case, a 4-year-old girl was brought to the hospital and an X-ray showed silver coins in the girl's esophagus that pushed the trachea and prevented the girl from breathing properly.
Dr. Hani Taf Olivestone, Photo: Assuta Hospital Spokesperson's Office in Ashdod
Dr. Sharon Avnat Tamar, Photo: Assuta Ashdod Hospital Spokesperson's Office
After medical consultation with senior doctors from various departments of the hospital, including Dr. Hani Tuff Ulverston, Director of the Pediatric Gastroenterology Unit and Dr. Sharon Avnat Tamir, Director of the ENT and Head and Neck Surgery Department, it was decided that urgent surgeries were needed to prevent danger to the lives of the two children. To everyone's delight, the surgeries ended successfully. The silver coins and parts of the game were removed intact and the girls were transferred to the pediatric ward for further care and observation.
After the surgeries, Dr Tuff Olivestone said: "Unfortunately, in recent months, we have seen a large increase in the number of referrals to hospitals following the play and ingestion of magnet game parts. In light of the increase in these cases, we fear that we will have to deal with more difficult cases. Am I urging parents not to bring magnet games into their homes? The answer is, unequivocally, yes! The best protection is prevention." Dr. Avnat Tamir added: "I appeal to all parents and warn them: when it comes to small children, every little thing they put in their mouths can be inhaled into the lungs or swallowed and stuck in the esophagus. Keep it out of their hands."
Silver coins found in the body of one of the children, photo: Assuta Ashdod Hospital Spokesperson's Office
X-ray of the silver coins - the body fixed in the esophagus that made it difficult to breathe, photo: Assuta Ashdod Hospital Spokesperson's Office
Dr. Nili Yanai, a senior pediatrician at the Pediatric Medical Center, who gives the children their first treatments when they arrive at the hospital: "Inhaling a foreign body is life-threatening! Small children learn the world and tend to put everything in their mouths. We parents must be vigilant and avoid playing with small parts that are inappropriate for their age. Even when it comes to food, the ability to chew and swallow children up to 5 years of age is not as developed as in adults and they have a tendency to inhale into the trachea instead of the esophagus. It is very important to pay attention to the shape, texture and size of the food. It is our job, the parents, to be alert and prevent the next disaster."
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