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This trend’s a magnet for disaster.
A UK mom is warning of a potentially deadly new TikTok trend after her son’s fake tongue piercing stunt required doctors to extract multiple magnets from his stomach — resulting in several inches of his bowel being removed.
The 11-year-old patient, Ellis Tripp, is in critical condition after consuming five magnetic balls, which had infiltrated his digestive tract, the Independent reported.
“I’m in a nightmare,” wrote Ellis’ mom, Amy Clarke, in a Facebook post, adding that the toys “could/would have killed him if left any longer.”
The fiasco began after the distraught mother rushed her son to the hospital after he had experienced severe stomach pains for over a week. The doctors initially suspected he had suffered a ruptured appendix, only to be flabbergasted when their operating instruments attached to the magnets in his stomach during the examination.
The boy was transferred Friday to Birmingham children’s hospital, where doctors removed three of the “Magneto Beads.” He had to undergo a second six-hour procedure the following day to extract the two stragglers, which required surgeons to remove five inches of the boy’s intestine.
“It has been a truly horrific experience,” lamented Ellis’ grandma Sue Davies. “We didn’t think this could have ever happened to us, these tiny magnetic balls have caused such damage.”
It’s unclear how the balls ended up in the kid’s system. However, Clarke suspects the youth had swallowed them while attempting a TikTok challenge in which kids feign having a pierced tongue by placing magnets on the tops and bottoms of their lickers, the Daily Mail reported.
And unfortunately, the dumb stunt is sticking: The hospital revealed that Ellis was reportedly the fifth kid they’d admitted for the same condition that week.
Clarke warned other parents about the dangers of the stomach-destroying pursuit in the aforementioned Facebook post.
“Please talk to your children and tell them how DANGEROUS THESE ARE,” she wrote. “Magneto Beads are deadly if swallowed. They even have them in educational/childcare settings for children to play with. DESTROY THEM…!!!!!”
Ellis isn’t out of the woods yet.
“The next 24 hours are going to be crucial,” said Clarke. “It’s all about how his body fights this infection now after his bowel burst.”
Unfortunately, TikTok has become a magnet for dangerous stunts ranging from the potentially life-threatening “skull breaker” challenge to the “Cha-Cha-Slide challenge,” in which bozos swerve their car crazily in time with music.
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