NEW YORK -- Five-year-old Kyle Agnew is back on the fast track racing his favorite toys... but his playful curiousity nearly cost him his life.
For several days, Kyle had been suffering from severe flu like symptoms. After multiple tests, his pediatrician and parents were convinced it was a virus.
"The strep test, the urinalysis, everything came back negative. He didn't have a fever. Why was he throwing up?" said Kyle's mom, Lauren Agnew.
When Kyle started vomiting green bile, his parents rushed him to the hospital, where X-rays revealed the shocking culprit.
Kyle swallowed six tiny flat magnets. His mother uses them to post paper on a metal message strip. Each one, though smaller than a dime, is very strong.
Pediatrician Thomas Lee says two stacks of three magnets were lodged in separate parts of Kyle's intestine. They clung together on opposite sides of the intestine walls, making it appear on an X-ray like a single stack of six.
"The magnets will pinch them together and the pinching action is so tight that it erodes through the wall" said Lee.
"Basically, if we would have waited any longer there would have been internal bleeding... and it could have been a lot more serious" said dad David Agnew.
Children ingesting foreign objects are a common occurrence. Stony Brook Hospital says they have a few cases a month, but it's especially prevalent during the holidays, with many toys containing small parts, including magnets.
Kyle has learned his lesson the hard way.
