JEDDAH: Surgeons at King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh have removed 14 small magnetic toys from the intestines of a two-year-old girl. According to consultative pediatric surgeon Abdul Wahhab Al-Jabbab, the child had swallowed magnets each of around 1.5 cm in size and her parents were advised to let nature takes its course. “They didn't come out, though, and the child continued to experience pain until she was finally admitted to the emergency department at King Fahd Medical City,” he said. “An X-ray showed the 14 magnets all neatly organized together in her intestines.” The recent operation to remove them, along with a small section of damaged intestine, involved a five-strong surgical team and took three hours, and the patient was allowed home six days later. “Children are well known for swallowing all sorts of things out of curiosity or mistaking them for food, and cases like these are frequent at hospital emergency departments,” Al-Jabbab said. “Small round things like coins, sharp objects like staples or nails, plastic toys… they'll put anything they can get their hands on in their mouths.” Most objects pass through the system naturally, but not always. “In this case the magnets all stuck together and then got trapped in parts of the intestine wall causing fistulas (opening of abnormal channels or tracts) between intestines and a blockage, so we had to operate,” Al
