VANCOUVER -- We have a warning for parents just in time for the holidays: beware of toys and other devices containing lithium coin batteries. They could kill a child if swallowed. However, Duracell has just started selling batteries with a bitter coating designed to get children to spit them out before they can cause any damage.
No one could be happier about the change than Leslie Bangamba from Red Deer, Alta.
“Adding that extra layer of safety is a game changer, in my opinion,” she said.
In April, Bangamba’s now two-year-old daughter, Amélie Adolphe, 18 months old at the time, collapsed on the kitchen floor.
X-rays showed a coin battery lodged in her esophagus. Her mom had no idea how she got her hands on it but doctors estimated it had been there for about two days.
Amélie was rushed to Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, where doctors discovered massive internal bleeding.
“The electrical current has gone out of that, is going continuously out of that battery and bores a hole into their esophagus and beyond,” said Dr. Patrick Pierse, an Edmonton pediatrician.
Amélie's saliva combined with the battery to cause an electrical current and chemical reaction that ruptured her esophagus, trachea, aorta and carotid left artery. Amélie went into cardiac arrest twice, suffering a stroke and spending more than a month in the hospital.
She is lucky to be alive. A lodged coin battery can cause fatal injury to a child in as little as two hours. Duracell has been educating parents about the dangers of coin batteries and how parents can prevent ingestion. In October, the company announced its latest innovation.
Duracell lithium coin batteries, sizes 2032, 2025, and 2016 will now contain a transparent, non-toxic, bitter coating to discourage swallowing.
“This bitter taste really creates this instinctual response to spit it out,” said Michelle Potorski, Duracell's North America global brand VP.
Potorski told McLaughlin on Your Side that it is the only major manufacturer to put a bitter coating on the battery itself.
“I think anything we can do to help prevent these accidental lithium coin ingestions is absolutely worth it,” she added.
Every year thousands of children in North America swallow coin batteries and since 1985, 30 children have died.
“I think Duracell is really leading the front and being a leader,” said Bangamba, “They’re clearing paying attention and listening.”
Bangamba is now on guard and checked around her home searching for any devices from toys, remote controls, security devices and many other gadgets that contain lithium coin batteries. She has secured them and put them out of reach. She even discovered the small training toilet Amélie uses also had a coin battery. Although secured with screws, Bangamba took no chances.
“So that was duct-taped probably 10 times around,” she said.
If children can get access to any devices with a coin battery, you should also tape those up and bagging up loose batteries to lock them away.
Amélie is home now and doing much better, yet she still needs feeding with a gastrostomy tube because she continues to have difficulty eating.
Duracell’s batteries with the bitter coating are for sale at most major retailers including London Drugs, Staples, Costco and the Source, owned by Bell, the parent company of CTV News.
