A 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed 80 to 100 tiny but extremely strong neodymium iron boron magnets, which formed four straight lines in his intestines. This caused tissue necrosis in several areas of his small intestine and cecum, requiring emergency surgery to remove the magnets and the necrotic tissue.
The report in the New Zealand Medical Journal did not explain why the boy swallowed the magnets, but local officials recently warned that social media posts encouraging children to use magnets to pretend to wear tongue, nose, and lip piercings could lead to accidental magnet ingestion.
New Zealand banned the sale of these powerful magnets in 2013 after a series of medical incidents, but the boy is believed to have purchased them from an e-commerce platform, highlighting the difficulty in preventing contraband online. (AFP)
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