Safety Alert: Small Loose Magnets can be Dangerous for Small Children
The Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) are alerting parents/carers to the dangers posed by small loose magnets. They have advised that a four-year-old boy had died days after swallowing two small magnets.
He ate two 1cm-by-1cm pink magnets from his fridge door. Those magnets attracted together inside his body, tearing a hole in his bowel. This led to acute sepsis and the heart attack that tragically killed him.
Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident.
Around 300 UK youngsters were admitted to A&E in a single year after swallowing magnets. One in 10 required life-saving operations.
A Safety Alert was issued by the Office of Product Safety and Standards in 2021 warning families about small, strong magnets.
Yet many families are still unaware of the dangers.
Please help CAPT spread the word in your communities about the risks.
You can:
- Learn the risks and how these accidents happen so you can talk to the families you work with about the dangers
- Download, print and display the CAPT's poster
- Display the CAPT's digital poster on your screens
- Read and share their toy safety fact sheet
