Her Toddler Passed Away After Swallowing A Button Battery And Now She’s Advocating For Change So No Other Parent Has To Suffer A Loss Like This
Lubbock, Texas. Button batteries are found in just about every house across America. These tiny, shiny batteries power toys for children, TV remotes, car keys, and watches; just to name a few things.
Reese Hamsmith was 18-months-old when she swallowed a button battery in October of 2020, and her mom Trista had no idea that she had gotten her hands on one.
At first, Trista noticed that Reese didn’t seem right. It looked like Reese was getting sick and she had a runny nose, so Trista brought her to the pediatrician.
The pediatrician thought that Reese had croup, and Reese was given a steroid shot. After returning home, Reese’s family realized there was a button battery that was unaccounted for.
An internet search into the symptoms of swallowing a button battery left Reese’s family rushing her to the nearest hospital.
Facebook; pictured above is Reese
Unfortunately, the symptoms of croup and the symptoms of swallowing a button battery and pretty much identical and include wheezing, coughing, a runny nose, and gagging.
Reese got an x-ray in the hospital that confirmed the worst; she had swallowed that missing button battery.
Reese underwent emergency surgery to get the button battery out of her, and although she was released, she ended up returning after a CT scan showed that she now had a hole in her trachea and in her esophagus.
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Reese was sedated and placed on a ventilator. Not long after that, she went into respiratory code and had to be flown to a Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital.
It was December 1st, 2020, when Reese went into surgery to repair the holes in her trachea and esophagus.
The surgery was a success, and a week later, Reese was removed from the ventilator. Trista ducked out of Reese’s room to get something to eat for dinner, but by the time she came back, Reese was close to dying and had to be put back on the ventilator.
Facebook; pictured above Reese smiles
Over the next few weeks, Reese was removed from the ventilator again, only to be put back on because she couldn’t breathe on her own.
She then underwent two more surgeries to have a tracheostomy tube placed. The following morning, Reese sadly passed away on December 17th.
After Reese’s tragic passing, Trista knew she had to advocate for change so no other parent had to suffer a loss like this.
“I remember being on the floor begging God. ‘Please don’t take her. Not my baby.’ This time she was lifeless, she was blue, and she was no longer with us,” Trista wrote on a change.org petition she started.
“I can’t begin to describe the feeling of losing a child or the pain we live with every day…”
Trista is now advocating for national legislation that would make it mandatory for button batteries to come with 2 important things.
One thing Trista is advocating for is, “button cell battery compartments of all consumer products to be secured, to the greatest extent practicable, in a manner that reduces access to button cell batteries by children that are 3 years of age or younger.”
The second thing Trista is advocating for is, “warning labels that clearly identify the hazard of ingestion, instructs consumers to keep new and used batteries out of the reach of children and to seek immediate medical attention if a battery is ingested on all consumer products with button batteries and on the batteries themselves.”
You can sign the petition Trista started here, and you can follow her Facebook page called Reese’s Purpose here.
More About:Human Interest
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