Kellie Rose Joniec from Texas shared the worrying story on her Facebook page to make families aware of how easily this new craze of toys can become a choking hazard.
The mum-of-two started her post by explaining that her daughter, Britton, had just been to a ‘swim meet’ and was sitting in the back of the car on the way home when the incident occurred.
‘On the way home from a fun swim meet, I heard Britton make an odd retching noise in the back seat as I was driving.’
Kellie continued to describe an upsetting scene in which her daughter ‘turned red’ and started to ‘drool’.
‘Looking back in the mirror, I saw her face turning red and drool pouring from her mouth — she could utter noises but looked panicked so I immediately pulled over.
‘She pointed to her throat saying she’d swallowed something, so I attempted Heimlich but there was no resistance. She said she’d put part of her fidget spinner in her mouth to clean it and somehow swallowed it.’
Despite feeling ‘frantic’, the mum kept a cool head and managed to take her daughter to the relevant medical services to help Britton.
‘Frantic, I went straight to urgent care where they checked her for choking. They couldn’t discern where the foreign object was located — along the airway or the esophagus.
‘From there we got the red-light treatment via ambulance ? to Texas Children’s Hospital. X-ray showed the spinner bushing lodged in her esophagus.
‘After multiple, very stressful attempts to place an IV, Britton was taken to surgery to endoscopically locate and remove the object. Fortunately we had a positive outcome, but it was pretty scary there for a while…
‘Not only because of the initial ingestion, but then the concern about the composition and structure of the object, and finally, the risk with general anesthesia.’
Kellie continued to ‘offer some word of caution to parents’.
‘Fidget spinners are the current craze so they are widely distributed. Kids of all ages may be getting them, but not all spinners come with age-appropriate warnings.
‘The bushings pop out easily, so if you have young kids (under 8 yr old) keep in mind that these present a potential choking hazard.’
So far Kellie’s post has been shared over 672k times with thousands of concerned parents flooding the post with comments.
‘Thank goodness your daughter is okay! ☺️ My nephews have so many of these, it’s a hot trend at school so of course they have to have them. But thanks for the warning, I will make sure my nephews are very careful’, one posted.
