With an incredible medical case, doctors found themselves facing each other in New Zealandwhen a minor swallowed about 100 magnets.
The 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed up to 100 small, powerful magnets he had bought from a well-known platform, forcing doctors to remove part of his intestineaccording to the medical announcement on Friday 24.10.2025.
The child, whose details have not been released, was taken to Tauranga Hospital in Northern New Zealand after four days of severe abdominal pain.
According to a report in the New Zealand Medical Journal, he “admitted to having swallowed approximately 80-100 powerful 5x2mm neodymium magnets about a week earlier.”
These magnets have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, but doctors said they were bought from overseas.
The x-ray showed that the magnets were concentrated in four straight lines inside the child’s intestines, as was also seen on the x-ray.
A 13-year-old boy in New Zealand swallowed up to 100 high-power magnets he bought on Temu, forcing surgeons to remove tissue from his intestines, doctors said on Friday.
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“They seemed to be in different parts of the gut, which they were get stuck to each other due to magnetic forces,” the report says.
Doctors said the pressure of the magnets caused tissue necrosis in four places in the small intestine and in the cecum, which is part of the large intestine.
Surgeons removed the dead tissue and magnets, and the child was discharged after eight days of hospitalization.
“This case shows not only the dangers of swallowing magnetsbut also the dangers of online shopping for children,” wrote study authors – Binura Lekamalage, Lucinda Duncan-Ware and Nicola Davies.
They also pointed out that such interventions may cause complications later in life, as intestinal obstruction, hernia or chronic pain.