12-year-old boy gets life-saving surgery after swallowing 54 toy magnets

A 12-year-old schoolboy in Manchester underwent life-saving surgery after he deliberately swallowed 54 toy magnets.

Rhiley Morrison, hailing from Prestwich, ate the magnetic balls to see if they would make metal objects stick to his stomach besides being curious about what they would look like when he passed them.

It was only after the metal balls didn’t appear four days later he told his mother Paige Ward that he had swallowed two “by accident”.

She took him to hospital where doctors carried out an x-ray and were stunned to discover 54 of the powerful magnet toys in his stomach and bowel.

Medics feared that the magnets could have caused potentially fatal internal damage. They rushed him into surgery where the objects were removed during a six-hour operation.

The boy is now recovering at home. Paige said “I was gobsmacked, just speechless when I heard the number he’d swallowed. The doctors guessed around 25- 30 from the x-ray, but when he came out of surgery they said they got 54.”

“I think what made it harder is that I just didn’t understand how or why he would swallow that many.”

“Rhiley is massively into science, he loves experiments, he eventually admitted I tried to stick magnets to me, I wanted to see if this copper would stick to my belly while the magnets were in”.

“It’s just so silly, but he’s a child and that’s what kids do. He also thought it would be fun seeing them come out the other end.”