Umar, 3, loved to eat chocolate chip cookies and drink orange juice. All of this changed last September when he ingested a lithium button battery.
His parents never actually saw him swallow the battery, but they began to get suspicious when they noticed that Umar was particularly lethargic, lying on his bed and breathing but not moving.
“Umar is such a hyper kid — it was confusing and scary at the same time,” said Umar’s mother, Sonia Khan. “It was frustrating because we couldn’t figure what was wrong with him.”
His parents immediately rushed him to the emergency department where a chest x-ray was taken. Doctors found what was initially presumed to be a button in his esophagus.
But when the physicians took him to the operating room, they found severe damage to his esophagus because of what turned out to be a lithium button battery.
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