Childern can become seriously Ill by swallowing lithium batteries

[liz stevens]

As electronics are made smaller and manufactures find new ways to make things talk, lithium button batteries are becoming more and more widely used in just about every hand held electronic device, they are even in children talking books and popular greeting cards.

Every home is likely to have at least three devices in the home now using lithium button batteries. These are generally under easy to open battery compartments such as TV remote controls, or behind the paper in a greeting card or talking book. This allows easy access to a curious young child to then become entranced with the little shinny battery disc.

Once the lithium batteries become ingested they can quickly become lodged in the esophagus or other areas, and then heat up in just a few hours to the point, irreversible tissue burns and holes can extend out into other organs.

The symptoms of vomiting may be mistaken even in a doctors office as stomach bug. If a child shows these symptoms, look for open electronic cases, or torn pages to see if the child may have swallowed a lithium battery. They will quickly show up on an X-Ray, but routinely X-Rays are not performed on stomach bugs unless the parent lets the staff know there are potential lithium batteries missing.

If a child for sure swallows lithium batteries seek immediate medical help as damage can occur quickly leading to permanent damage within hours.

 

[2dream]

As an added note - even with an X-Ray these batteries look like nickles. And because nickles themselves are not deadly like pennies - Dr's may say lets see if it passes. This just happend to a friend of mine. They ended up removing a large portion of her 18 month olds intestines. He almost died before they made the decision to operate. They still have no idea where this battery came from. They had no missing batteries in their home - The only thing they can think of is from a friends house or day care.

 

[Beekissed]

I read an article once about people in Africa using these type of batteries to commit suicide when they find out they have AIDS....the article said the batteries could kill someone in under 20 min., but did not explain just how. From the info in this thread, it doesn't sound as if that info was accurate but the batteries remain quite deadly.

 

[kstaven]

What breed of lithium battery is the reference point in this? L ion, lifepo etc........

 

[~gd]

What breed of lithium battery is the reference point in this? L ion, lifepo etc........

kstaven, I find this website http://batteryuniversity.com/learn very usefull reference for battery information. It doesn't seem to be selling anything. The name Battery University seems to ring true also since it offers articles usefull to people that just want an overview to data that is way over my head. Since it appears that batterys are going to be a major part of such things as power storage for people that want to get off the grid to running power tools and lighting systems. I don't know where it should be posted for people to find and use, For my own use it has a home on my favorites bar on my computer.~gd