This small watch batter seen in the photo was pulled from the nostril of a two-year-old toddler whose sister thought “the battery is dead”.

Home accidents during children’s play have become commonplace in recent years, and therefore there is great importance for adults to remain alert.

A two-year-old toddler, a resident of the Western Galil, was brought to the emergency room at the Galil Medical Center at the end of the week, with a button battery in one nostril. The family told the team that the baby was sleeping in his bed and his sister was playing alongside him, pushing the battery as part of a game to her brother’s nose because she thought he had fallen asleep because “the battery was dead,” like a toy. This immediately caused him to wake up crying from his sleep.

ENT Dr. Amiel Dror treated the toddler. He explained, “There was an immediate need to remove the battery because, unlike other batteries, a button battery, even if not full, may damage tissue due to the chemical in it. The damage is caused by a hole in the partition that can be formed and cause serious problems for the toddler with breathing through the nose. The toddler was very lucky that the battery did not progress to the depth of the nose or worse – to the trachea or the esophagus, so the case might have ended in a completely different way.”

“After locating the battery, it is fully pulled out without any damage to the baby’s nose. At the end of supervision, the infant was released to his home. When children leave for the summer vacation in less than a month, keep small children under adult supervision. The ENT team reiterates that small objects, especially batteries and magnets, should be kept away, as well as sharp objects, from a small children’s environment. There is a good way to remember which objects may be dangerous in children under the age of 3 – any object that enters a film box of old cameras poses a danger. If a foreign body enters the ear, nose or mouth of a child, they should be brought to the nearest medical center immediately.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)