Boy recovering after swallowing small magnets

SALT LAKE CITY — A six-year-old boy is recovering at Primary Children’s Hospital after accidentally swallowing fourteen small magnets.

The boy’s parents first became aware that there might be a health concern with their son on Halloween when the boy said he was too sick to go trick-or-treating.

“He just didn’t feel well, and [he felt] nauseous and that lasted for a couple days,” Blake Arvidson, the boy’s father, said.

When Mikah’s symptoms didn’t improve, his parents suspected that there was something wrong and immediately rushed Mikah to the ER where the doctors ordered blood work and an X-ray. The results did not immediately provide answers and only offered confusion for the doctors.

The doctors initially thought that the strange image on the X-ray was a metal zipper on the boy’s pants but mysterious image turned out to be fourteen small magnets, each the size of a pinhead. Mikah put the small magnets in his mouth to hide them from his brother.

The diagnosis came as a complete surprise to Mikah’s mother, Aubrey.

“But we didn’t know he had swallowed them, and he didn’t know he had swallowed them,” Aubrey said.

The magnets perforated the boy’s intestines that resulted in two emergency surgeries and he is finally recovering.

Mikah is warning others against making the same mistake.

“If you swallow some magnets you might feel bad,” Mikah quietly said from his hospital bed.

“Yeah, it was pretty shocking that … something so small and looks so harmless could cause so much damage,” Blake said.

“We don’t want other families to go have to through what we did and [the small magnets] are definitely not for kids,” Aubrey warned.

The parents ask that those who own these fidget magnets or are in the market for some to reconsider if it is worth having in your home.

Mikah is still on the road to recovery. He has not been able to eat since his surgeries. His parents are hopeful he will able to do so by the end of the week.