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Alert: Lithium Batteries the Death Trap at the Back of the Drawer
These small batteries don’t even have to be broken, chewed or damaged in any way to cause a terrible death from internal bleeding.
We all have one…a junk drawer. The place we shove things that we will want again, but we’re not sure when and items which just don’t have another ‘home’.
Remodelling the house means mine is even more full of junk than usual. A cursory glance turns up batteries, receipts, a watch with a damaged strap, plastic carrier bags, a furry boiled sweet circa God knows when, a screwdriver, dog lead, and more batteries…you get the picture. Admit it, you have a drawer, cupboard or box just like this.
The deaths of several children in the UK has been linked to these drawers…or rather a particular item we often store in them: Lithium batteries.
The small round shape, nice and shiny attracts young children almost immediately. Now a child choking on a battery is bad enough but lithium batteries are responsible for far more than choking hazards.
These small batteries don’t even have to be broken, chewed or damaged in any way to cause a terrible death from internal bleeding.
Once inside the body the battery creates an electrical current, and that current causes a build up of sodium hydroxide the common name of which is caustic soda. The caustic soda burns through the oesophagus and continues on to burn through major blood vessels leading to catastrophic internal bleeding.
Even after removal, if enough sodium hydroxide has built up the burning will continue causing death anything up to a week later.
Once major internal hemorrhaging starts it is all but impossible to stop, death is almost inevitable.
Put all batteries, but lithium batteries in particular in a tin, box or some kind of container that’s stored well out of the reach of children. Even just a few minutes sucking on one of these batteries can trigger the reaction and leave the child with severe oral burns that can, in the worst cases, leave them with injuries that will affect them for life.
It’s just not worth it. Sort out the drawer.
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Take care
Liz
Lithium is a nightmare. If you even touch a soldering iron to a PC board where one of these batteries has leaked, there is an instant explosion. The leaked particle can be so small that you can’t even see it until it explodes.