In recent days, a 2-year-old child in Dali, Yunnan Province, was rushed to the hospital with a severely injured mouth after biting a battery out of curiosity, which subsequently exploded.
According to reports from mainland Chinese media, the child’s father stated that the incident occurred on the afternoon of November 23rd, while the child was playing alone in a room. Suddenly, there was a loud “bang” in the room, followed by the child’s screams.
When family members rushed into the room, they found “white smoke coming out of the child’s mouth, and a large amount of black powder mixed with blood inside the mouth. There was an empty shell of a size 5 battery on the floor with its negative metal strip missing.”
The child was promptly taken to the Emergency Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Dali University. Doctors in the emergency department found a burnt cylindrical object in the child’s mouth, with vague signs of mangled flesh and a “blood hole” visible inside the mouth. The battery’s protective cover and electrode were lodged between the biting and cheek muscles. Thankfully, the explosion caused injuries limited to multiple perforations in the soft tissues of the mouth, and no battery fragments entered the body.
After an hour of “oral explosion wound debridement surgery + foreign body removal surgery,” the battery cover, electrode, and remaining debris were completely extracted. Currently, the child is not in critical condition and is undergoing postoperative recovery treatment in the department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
The news has triggered fear among many netizens. Some commented, “My grandchild always bites on batteries, I only knew they were toxic, didn’t know they could explode.” “Oh dear, I heard as a child that if a battery has no charge, you can put it in your mouth and bite to get a shock. Now, even as adults, we still do this often.” “When we were young, we used to hit them with a brick to test.”
Other netizens have questioned, “Were those tiny batteries, like the ones in watches, ordinary size 5 or 7 batteries won’t explode even if crushed, right?” To which another netizen responded, the explosion was likely caused by a lithium battery, not nickel-hydrogen batteries. “Biting a lithium battery will cause an explosion.”
This incident serves as a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of mishandling batteries, especially when it comes to young children who may not understand the risks involved. It also highlights the importance of proper safety measures and education regarding the handling of potentially hazardous items to prevent such accidents from happening in the future.