Girl Has Small Intestines Cut Open After Swallowing Rare Earth Magnets by Accident

A Florida teen girl had to undergo surgery and have her small intestines cute open in order to remove the magnets, as well as her appendix and a small section of her colon, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

Christin Rivas, 14, accidentally swallowed two buckminsterfullerenes or 'Buckyballs' - rare-earth magnets that are incredibly strong and can perforate the stomach and even kill if swallowed. 

Rivas says swallowing the tiny, spherical magnets was 'one of those stupid moments.'

'I was going to the bathroom and I put them in my mouth because I didn't want to put them on the floor. I wasn't quite thinking. The kid on the other side said something that made me laugh and swallow them,' she told ABC News.

'I started to try to make myself throw up because I read they were really dangerous and got really worried,' she said. 'I told my teacher, and she sent me to the clinic and they called my mom.'

Christin Rivas' mother, Barbara Rivas, did some research on Google and discovered that her daughter's condition was life-threatening. 

She rushed her to the emergency room where doctors told her to go home and wait until her daughter passed the magnets. 

Following the incident, she wound up in the emergency room five days later landed in the hospital, where surgeons cut open her small intestine to remove the magnets, as well as her appendix and a small section of her colon, The Orlando Sentinel reported.

These pea-size magnets are made for car wheel bearings and computer hard drives but are often sold for jewelry and art projects or touted as an arthritis cure.