Lucky to live...‘tummy ache’ tot who ate a lethal battery

A GIRL of two taken to hospital with tummy ache is lucky to be alive after doctors found she had swallowed a battery.

Mum Kirsty Duffy was told to give Elsie-Rose a final kiss as her chances of survival were like “walking across a motorway”.

Elsie-Rose had somehow gulped down a lithium battery the size of a 1p piece. It had got lodged in her oesophagus, the tube that links the throat to the stomach, and was mixing with saliva to produce caustic soda.

This was burning a hole in her throat and doctors at Sheffield Childrens’ Hospital said the battery had to be removed at once. So she was rushed 35 miles to Leeds General Infirmary.

Kirsty said: “The surgeons told me her chances of survival were like her walking across a motorway without getting hit by a car or lorry.They told me to give her one last kiss – I was devastated.”

The surgeon who performed the op told the single mum her daughter was “lucky to survive something she should not have”.

Elsie-Rose spent five days in intensive care before going home to Barnsley.

Kirsty, 29, thinks the battery may have come from a toy belonging to one of her three older children aged six to 12.

She added: “She seems back to her normal self, which is such a relief.”

Sheffield paediatrician Mike Thomson said: “Button batteries are incredibly dangerous.”

Katrina

Phillips of the Child Accident Prevention Trust said: “It is important to know where they are in your home.” Elsie-Rose back home none the worse for her ordeal after needing an op to remove a battery. Left, X-ray image clearly shows the offending article lodged in tube linking her throat to her stomach