Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

Video Credit: AsiaWire

This is the moment a doctor pulls over two dozen magnetic balls out of a boy’s stomach after he swallowed them while his dad was not looking.

The five-year-old from the city of Weihui in China’s central Henan Province had been visiting his relatives when he decided to eat 29 of his cousin’s toys known as ‘Buckyballs’.

In the days following, the boy complained of severe stomach pains, leading his parents to get him checked at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University on 1st November.

Liu Gensheng, the facility’s head of paediatric surgery, said the boy’s mum thought he had gastroenteritis, but she finally sought expert advice when the child failed to respond to medication.

Mr Li said: “By the time his family realised the magnetic beads were missing and brought him to hospital, it had already been three days.

“Scans revealed that the magnets were inside his stomach. There were 29 of them.

“We’d removed quite a few in the past, but never this many.”

The hospital scheduled an urgent gastroscopy, with video showing a medic extending the instrument into the boy’s stomach and locating the cluster of Buckyballs.

Doctor Liu added: “It was challenging because the magnets were very smooth and hard to clasp, but the good thing is that they’re magnetic.

“They stuck together forming a chain, allowing us to pull them out.

“The boy is in stable condition, but he’s being kept under observation.”

The medic noted that, if left untreated, magnetic balls could cause a rupture in the stomach or intestines.

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