Summer Steer: 4yo who swallowed lithium battery taken to hospital three times before death, Queensland inquest hears

By JO SKINNER and BRUCE ATKINSON

The mother of a four-year-old Queensland girl who died after swallowing a lithium battery says she took her daughter to the doctor twice and hospital three times in the fortnight before her death.

Summer Steer, from the Sunshine Coast, became the first child to die in Australia from swallowing a button-style battery when she passed away on June 30, 2013.

Her mother, Andrea Shoesmith, has been questioned at a coronial inquest today about the girl’s health the fortnight before her death.

She said Summer had been taken to the family doctor on June 13 and 17 with a sore stomach, high temperature and black bowel movements.

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Summer then visited Noosa Hospital twice the night before she died, after vomiting blood.

She was discharged both times but returned a third time and was flown to a Brisbane hospital, where she suffered a heart attack and died.

A pre-inquest hearing was told about 260 children across Australia swallow lithium batteries each year.

Small batteries are like ‘loaded guns’ in homes: Kidsafe Queensland

Kidsafe Queensland chief executive Susan Teerds said she hoped the publicity surrounding the inquest would raise public awareness about the dangers.

“If you’ve got lithium button batteries, any of these small batteries in your home, it’s like having a loaded gun, seriously that’s how deadly they are,” she said.

“They’re in so many products, you know, every remote control is going towards thin and slim and that requires the flat button-type batteries.

“If they’re in toys, they have to be in screwed-down battery compartments, but other products that are accessible to children, there’s no regulation that they have to be screwed down.”

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Ms Teerds said while Summer’s battery-related death may have been the first in Australia, she fears it will not be the last.

“I think it will exceed drowning in the number of children unfortunately dying,” she said.

“So we need people to take action. We need manufacturers to take action, we need them to screw down all their battery compartments.

“We need parents to take action, put the batteries out of sight and out of reach of children.

“Change your products if you’ve got these at home in remote controls. Can you go and buy something different?”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

 

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