Warning: This article contains images and content that may disturb some readers!
The world is full of dangers for children. Situations and objects that we deal with every day as adults can put babies and toddlers in mortal danger. This also brings the tragic story of little Reese Hamsmith to mind in a sad way.
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Reese Hamsmith from Lubbock, Texas is a little sunshine. The girl wraps everyone around her finger with his bright manner. But one day in October 2020, the usually lively one-year-old suddenly becomes listless and develops a persistent cough. Her parents worry and take Reese to the doctor.
The doctor diagnoses croup, a common respiratory disease in children, as the cause of Reese’s cough. He prescribes some medication and asks the parents to come back if their daughter’s condition worsens. Back home, Reese’s cough doesn’t get any better, and when her parents notice that the remote control is missing a battery, a terrible suspicion creeps into them. They don’t hesitate for a second and take their daughter to the emergency room.
An X-ray confirms the worst fears: Reese swallowed a button battery. Doctors immediately prepare emergency surgery to remove the battery from the girl’s esophagus.
The doctors manage to remove the swallowed battery. Reese’s parents are relieved that the horror is over and that they can take their daughter home with them. But when Reese’s condition rapidly deteriorated a few days later, she was taken to the hospital again. There you find that the battery has caused more damage than feared.
Apparently the button cell reacted with the saliva and burned a hole in Reese’s esophagus. A second operation seems inevitable. In the meantime, the girl has to be artificially ventilated and fed.
“The operation was successful and from then on it was only a matter of waiting, resting and getting well,” says Reese’s mother Trista. Finally, after a few weeks, Reese can be removed from the ventilator. The nightmare finally seems to be over, but soon the girl’s condition worsens again. Suddenly Reese’s room is full of doctors who are desperately trying to resuscitate the girl.
Trista will never forget the moment when the doctors lose the battle for their daughter’s life. “When she left life, she was blue and no longer with us,” she describes the heartbreaking moment on Facebook. “I cannot describe the feeling of losing a child.”
The pain of losing her daughter is unbearable, but Trista decides that her child should not have died in vain. So she spreads Reese’s story on the Internet and warns other parents about the dangers of batteries. “This story has to be told,” says the mother. “Because it didn’t have to happen.”
Trista is also launching a petition to oblige battery and electrical appliance manufacturers to make their products safer. Hopefully the mother will reach as many people as possible so that other children are spared the terrible fate of Reese.
Thumbnail: © Facebook / Pray for Reese Hamsmith