A one-year-old is “lucky to be alive” after accidentally swallowing a toy battery that burnt a hole in his throat.
Keith Karre was playing with a toy phone in his living room with three-year-old brother Nicky, when he started to choke.
Parents Katie Woodside and Nick Karre, both 35, desperately tried to fish out whatever was blocking his throat.
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Keith turned purple and started to foam at the mouth so the terrified couple called an ambulance.
At the hospital, an X-ray revealed that the tot had swallowed a button battery.
Keith was in so much pain that he passed out.
“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Katie, from New York, USA, told Need to Know.
“He was playing with his brother and I heard him coughing.
“I knew it wasn’t a normal cough.
“Then he was foaming at the mouth, there was blood and he was turning purple.
“It was terrifying.
“Thank God his dad was there or I wouldn’t have known what to do.
“We knew he was choking and we were trying to get whatever it was out but we couldn’t.
“I was crying.
“At the hospital, they found a circular battery in his oesophagus.
“He’d taken it out of a phone toy.
“I can’t believe he was able to just pop a battery out of a toy that’s made for a child.
“When these batteries get wet, they have a chemical reaction and bubble up.
“They eat through the skin so they ate through his throat.
“He passed out from the pain.
“It was absolutely terrible.
“I was going to lose it.
‘I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do.
“When we got to the hospital there were 15 doctors, nurses and specialists waiting for us.”
Doctors performed surgery for 90 minutes to remove the button with Keith recovering in intensive care for two weeks.
Katie, who works as a hairdresser, said: “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.
“He was in so much pain.
“He was crying and he was covered in tubes so I couldn’t even pick him up and hold him.”
The incident happened in January but Keith’s oesophagus is still so damaged that he’s at risk of choking every time he eats.
He has to stick to pureed food and his parents have a machine on hand to suck out any food that gets lodged in his throat.
Katie is now sharing the family’s story to warn other parents of the dangers of battery-powered toys.
She said: “He’s lucky to be alive.
“He’s got scarring in his oesophagus.
“It’s so delicate in there.
“He could have issues for the rest of his life.
“Kids usually bounce back pretty good but he chokes on everything.”
The mum-of-two says she has thrown out anything that has batteries in it.
She added: “I got rid of all the toys with batteries. We have rechargeable things now.
“If parents have toys with batteries in them they need to get rid of them. Don’t have them.
“I don’t care if it doesn’t light up or make a noise, they can make the noise themselves.
“You don’t think it will happen to you and your child.
“A lot of kids aren’t as lucky.”
