In a TikTok challenge, a nine-year-old child almost died after ingesting small magnets.
Jack McGeoch, from Borestone, Stirling, was rushed to hospital last Tuesday with severe abdominal discomfort and vomiting.
“Something was clogging his bowel,” Carolann said, and Jack eventually admitted to swallowing magnets.
On Wednesday, he was airlifted to Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children, where he had emergency surgery on Thursday.
Mrs. McGeoch was informed her son could die from the magnets staying together through the intestinal wall.
“I was told that the damage these magnets might do could be so severe that he might not survive,” she said.
“I had to sign my consent to the operation and accept that anything may happen.”
Jack allegedly swallowed little Magneto balls as part of a TikTok challenge.
It’s unclear what the challenge was, however, there are films of teenagers inserting balls in their mouths to create the effect of tongue and lip piercings.
It took four hours to remove the nine-year-appendix, old’s small bowel, and 30cm of large colon ‘for some foolish magnets,’ his mother claimed.
Jack is still on fluids five days after surgery, can’t walk unaided, and is “not the same little guy a week ago,” Mrs. McGeoch said.
For their potential harm, surgeons are fighting tooth and nail to have these magnets prohibited.
“Jack is blessed to be alive, but if his story may save other children, I will do everything I can to spread the news.
Videos on social media encourage kids to play with these, but they forget to explain that these small magnets could kill. Easily.
“Jack’s life has altered forever, let’s save others.”
Jack is not the first child to succumb to the Tik Tok magnet challenge, with the NHS issuing a warning earlier this year.
Ellis Tripp, 11, was rushed to hospital in May with stomach symptoms, before surgeons discovered magnetic balls in his intestines and bowel.
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