SWNS via SWNSA little girl who accidentally swallowed a battery will be left with scarring after heroesophagus was burned.
Sarah Wallace swallowed the small button battery from a remote control for her nightlight.
The nine-year-old was worried she would get into trouble but confessed to her mum and stepdad what she had done around 10pm on November 22.
Within ten minutes of her parents calling 999, Sarah started screaming and clutching her chest at their home in Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Mum-of-one Joanne Wallace, 35, a customer service assistant and her husband Jamie Longland, 38, a gas engineer, drove to Victoria Hospital rather than wait for any longer for an ambulance.
The battery caused scarring after it began leaking in her oesophagus and she is still taking omeprazole, but she was spared more serious harm after vomiting it up when meds were put up her nose in hospital.
Joanne said: “She was wearing a necklace a few weeks ago and she put it in her mouth and it tasted metallic.
“When she was feeling the battery and realised it was metal, she put it in her mouth to taste the texture.
“She just happened to need to swallow her saliva.
“She didn’t put it in to eat it.
“When she came down the stairs, she wasn’t in a panic but she obviously thought she was going to get in trouble.
“She told us she had swallowed something and once we worked out it was a battery, I immediately phoned 999.
“I phoned the ambulance because I wasn’t sure if A&E was open.
SWNS via SWNS“We drove over to A&E.
“Within ten minutes of being in the hospital, she’d already been X-rayed and they identified the battery and where it was.
“They gave her diamorphine up her nose to calm her down, because her breathing was quite bad by this point.
“It made her choke and when she choked she threw up and the battery came up onto the floor of the hospital.
“It was black and blue and leaking.
“It looked like you’d left the battery in something for six months too long.”
Sarah was taken to the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh for an assessment.
She was taken down for an internal inspection at 7pm the following day.
Joanne added: “She was taken down and put to sleep, quite possibly the most terrifying moment of my life actually.
“She was asleep for about 20 minutes and then back up the ward, eating toast and drinking milk.
“Her oesophagus has been burned so when it heals it will scar slightly.
“Because the battery was only there for an hour, they reckon the scarring will be so minimal it will make no difference to her life at all.”
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