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2-Year-Old Dies After Swallowing A Battery

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May 23, 2009 6:19 pm US/Mountain

2-Year-Old Dies After Swallowing A Battery

Reporting
Howard Nathan
FORT LUPTON, Colo. (CBS4) ― A 2-year-old girl has died after swallowing a battery in Fort Lupton.

The battery was a flat-style battery the size of a nickel that can be found in games, watches and cameras. Doctors at The Children's Hospital removed it from the Elaina Redding's esophagus, but the battery had already caused too much internal damage.

"She loved her little brother because she didn't want you to make him cry. If you made him cry, she would make you cry," said Donna Redding, Elaina's mother.

Donna believes 90 minutes had elapsed. She says Platte Valley Medical in Brighton told the family to drive Elaina to Children's Hospital in Aurora. Doctors did an X-ray on her chest and found the battery lodged in Elaina's esophagus. As preparations were made to remove it, a nurse explained the danger.

"She said batteries are like bullets and you need to keep them locked-up like that," Donna said.

The Reddings believe the battery came from a Yahtzee game a friend left outside of the electronic version of the game. By the time doctors removed it from Elaina's esophagus, the family thinks about ten hours had elapsed, long after a chemical process can make it deadly.

"In less than five hours they can completely erode through the esophagus," said Dr. Mark Puder.

The National Poison Control Center said a wet battery emits an electrical current, leading to a chemical process which causes internal burning in a body.

"I saw the blood she threw up on the floor and there were blood clots in it," Donna said.

One day later Elaina was dead, leaving her mother in shock but with a message about loose batteries.

"It could cause a lot of damage and you could end up losing your child over it," Donna said.

The National Poison Control Center says there is a two-hour window when a battery is swallowed before a child can suffer serious injury.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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