Power of magnets

A Brooklyn 13-year-old is learning the hard way about the power of magnets.

The teenager accidently swallowed powerful “rare earth” magnets that were part of a fake tongue piercing. The teen was rushed to a hospital to have the magnets removed.

Magnets can be extremely deadly when swallowed because they can cause blood poisoning and result in holes in internal organs, according to a media alert issued by the Brooklyn teen’s doctor.

When the magnets attract to each other, they can squeeze the walls of the intestines together and kill the tissue between them, according to the doctor.

This week’s incident is hardly the first time a kid has swallowed a magnetic tongue ring.

Last year, a news station in St. Louis interviewed a 14-year-old girl who swallowed her fake tongue ring.

The girl said she tried putting the magnets on her tongue, but they slid back into her throat. She tried coughing to get the magnets out but ended up swallowing them.

The station quoted a St. Louis doctor who gave a graphic description of what happens when one swallows magnets.

“One magnet will be in one part of the bowel and another will be in another part of the bowel and they attract each other and they trap the tissue of the intestines together and cut off blood supply,” she said. “The kids can get bleeding, they can get ulcerations, they can get perforations, they can get twisting or volvulus, they can get obstructions, it can be pretty dangerous.”

Twisting or volvulus intestines?

No thank you.