Florida toddler swallows 16 magnets, is on feeding tube after surgery

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A boy in Florida is hospitalized and on a feeding tube after surgery to remove 16 toy magnets he swallowed in April. 

Konin Arrington, 2, was discharged after the initial incident a month ago, but he returned to the hospital with severe symptoms due to short bowel syndrome. 

The small magnets, no bigger than pellets, were linking together and creating holes in the boy’s digestive track, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. 

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One of Konin’s older siblings brought home the magnets from school. Konin is the youngest of five children. 

"He got the surgery done, and they took out almost 3 feet of his small intestine," Hannah Arrington, his mother, told WESH. "He also had to get the holes in his stomach repaired, holes in his large intestine repaired and a part near his colon repaired as well." 

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The magnets, known as BuckyBalls, were banned by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for causing serious injuries, but a judge lifted the ban in 2016. A study found that there was an 80% rise in those injuries in the three years following the repeal, US News reported. 

The Arringtons noticed the magnets and threw them away, but Konin had already found and ingested a few of them. Konin began complaining of pain in his stomach, and his parents rushed him to the emergency room, unaware that he had swallowed the magnets – or so many of them. 

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"As he ate them, they went down into his digestive tract, and then each time he would find another one somewhere in the house and swallow it, it would click together and it perforated a hole through his stomach all the way down into his colon area," Arrington said.

The initial operation was a success, but the damage was already done. Konin is back in Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and on a feeding tube due to lingering and possibly lifelong issues he faces. 

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"I don’t think parents understand the amount of seriousness these desk toys have," Arrington added. "We as parents want to get that out there to other parents and even kids who are thinking it will be a fun challenge, nothing will happen.

"You can die from it, you can have lifelong issues from it, because look where we are."