Three-year-old survives eating 37 magnets

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PORTLAND, Ore., March 3 (UPI) -- A 3-year-old girl is recovering in a Portland, Ore., hospital after swallowing 37 high-powered rare Earth Buckyball magnets, her parents said.

Kelli Bushnell, the mother of Payton, said at first she and her husband thought their little girl was suffering from the stomach flu, but when she didn't get better, their doctor took X-rays and discovered the magnets had formed a circle in her stomach.

"They saw a circle had formed in her stomach, and they thought she swallowed a bracelet," the mother told KPTV in Portland.

The physicians said the magnets snapped her intestines together and ripped three holes in her lower intestine and one in her stomach. The girl needed immediate surgery.

Bushnell said she was speaking to the media so others would learn about the dangers that magnets could cause children.

"If we had any idea what those magnets could have done to our daughter's intestines I would have never had them in our house," she told KPTV.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission advises all small magnets and small objects with magnets should be kept away from young children who might mistakenly or intentionally swallow them. Children often think the magnets are candy.