Medical emergency as girl chokes on small, round metal object

A10-year-old girl made headlines across the country last week after she put a small metal object in her mouth and accidentally swallowed it.

The object, which was about the size of a quarter or the button of a coat, got caught in her throat and she began to choke.

Fortunately, she was in the back seat of the family car and her mother noticed that she couldn’t breathe, so took her to an emergency room.

There, she was x-rayed and the doctors saw where the object was stuck.

They were able to operate on her and remove the metal object and she went home, a very lucky little girl who had learned an important lesson about putting things in your mouth.

She could have died. It was genuinely serious.

Still, since it had a happy ending, the story would probably not have even been in the local paper, much less in newspapers and on websites and on TV and radio around the country, if that small, round metal object had been a quarter or a coat button.

But it was a bushing from a Fidget Spinner, and so it became big news.

Last month, we reported on two kids who were hurt when they messed up the recipe for oobleck, and we said then that, when a fad becomes popular, there are always people quick to warn about how dangerous it is. And Fidget Spinners are popular.

Still, there truly is an important lesson here: Don’t put Fidget Spinner parts in your mouth.

Or quarters. Or the buttons of your coat.

You could choke and even die.