While BuckyBalls may look like a kid’s toy, they are definitely not for young children.

The Bushnall family in Portland, Oregon learned this lesson the hard way when their three-year-old daughter, Payton, swallowed 37 of the BB-sized magnets. At first, doctors thought the toddler had swallowed a regular bracelet, but when they realized they were magnets they had to quickly perform invasive surgery.

That’s because magnets will stick to a person’s stomach and intestines, causing serious injury or even death. Luckily, surgeons removed the BuckyBalls from Payton’s stomach in time, and then were able to repair the internal tears they caused.

“In all the research I have done, I have never seen any child swallow more than 10 magnets,” said Sandy Nipper, a nurse at Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

“I’m thinking that she kind of put two and two together and thought these look like what we put on Christmas cookies,” explained Kelli Bushnell, Payton’s mom. “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.”

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