Once every 90 minutes a child is rushed to a hospital emergency room after having swallowed a battery, most often one of the tiny, power-packed button batteries that present a hidden danger which can cause serious injury or even death.

Increasingly popular, button batteries are now used in a myriad of toys and other devices – toothbrushes, penlights, holiday ornaments, greeting cards, clocks, calculators and lighted bibs, shoes and T-shirts -- making them easily accessible to children.

Health officials note that when swallowed lithium button batteries come into contact with tissue fluids they can produce an external current and create a corrosive chemical reaction that can damage organs, particularly when batteries become lodged in a child’s esophagus. Injuries include esophageal burns and perforations, vocal cord paralysis, permanent tracheostomy, blood clots and cardiac arrest.

In many cases, fault rests with unsafe toys or devices whose battery compartments or outer packaging fail to adequately prevent children from accessing the button batteries.

If your child or a loved one suffered a severe injury due to ingestion or insertion of a button battery, you should contact a battery injury attorney.

Joseph Romano, a nationally recognized attorney/advocate, has dedicated his career to helping people who have suffered a variety of severe injuries. He is among the nation’s foremost legal experts when it comes to button battery injury cases.

Romano lectures throughout the United States on the topic and is currently involved in a case in which a Pennsylvania baby swallowed two button batteries and as a result suffered cardiac arrest, kidney damage and has lost all of his toes and most of his fingers. The batteries came from lighted tweezers that were purchased – without packaging or warnings – from a bin at a dollar store.

A study by The Research Institute at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, noted: “When a button battery is swallowed and gets caught in a child’s esophagus, serious, even fatal injuries can occur in less than two hours.”

This study cited nearly a doubling in the number of battery-related emergency room visits over the last 20 years to 5,525, while another study published earlier by Pediatrics magazine cited nine known fatalities since 2004.

In addition to filing lawsuits on behalf of injured clients, Romano also helps identify insurance, governmental, and nursing benefits.  He also assists families in filing insurance and Medicaid appeals and identifying lifetime-benefits for seriously injured children.
 
 Contact a button battery injury lawyer today.

Law Offices of Joseph L. Romano 583 Skippack Pike, Suite 500 Blue Bell, PA  19422 Phone: 215-628-1900 Toll Free: 800-331-4134 Fax:    215-628-2110

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