{"id":382643,"date":"2026-01-21T18:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/382643\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:07:10","slug":"two-year-old-girl-dies-after-swallowing-button-battery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/382643\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-year-old girl dies after swallowing button battery"},"content":{"rendered":"

A two-year old tragically passed away after swallowing a button battery from an LED light remote<\/p>\n

13:14, 21 Jan 2026Updated 13:14, 21 Jan 2026<\/p>\n

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Harper-Lee was rushed to the hospital but tragically passed away after swallowing the battery(Image: Jam Press)<\/p>\n

A mother has told of the devastating moment her two-year-old daughter died after swallowing a button battery<\/a> that burned through her oesophagus and a main artery. Harper-Lee Fanthorpe passed away on what began as a seemingly normal Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Her mum Stacy Nicklin said that the toddler<\/a> was pointing to her mouth, something she often did, as she had suffered from septic tonsillitis from a very young age. Stacy, 40, then tucked Harper-Lee into bed before heading off to work.<\/p>\n

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Harper-Lee Fanthorpe passed away on what began as a seemingly normal Sunday morning(Image: Jam Press)<\/p>\n

But she received a frantic phone call an hour later from daughter Jamie-Leigh, 23, who said that the two-year-old was spitting blood. She rushed home to find Harper-Lee in an ambulance.<\/p>\n

Stacy, from Stoke-on-Trent<\/a>, told NeedToKnow: \u201cI\u2019d told Harper-Lee that her throat would be better soon \u2013 little did I know that she was telling me she\u2019d swallowed something. I put her in my bed with Jamie-Leigh. I was only at work for an hour when I had a feeling that I needed to check my phone.<\/p>\n

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Harper-Lee and Kyla(Image: Jam Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were missed calls and messages that didn\u2019t make sense so I FaceTimed Jamie-Leigh \u2013 and Harper was covered in blood. A friend from work rushed me home and the paramedics said they needed to wait for a doctor because they\u2019d never seen anything like it before and they didn\u2019t know where the bleeding was coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stacy, who has another daughter, Kyla, 18, says that Harper-Lee was rushed to Royal Stoke University Hospital where a camera was inserted to find the source of the bleeding. Surgeons confirmed they\u2019d discovered a button battery from an LED light remote lodged inside Harper-Lee\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

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Harper-Lees funeral(Image: Jam Press)<\/p>\n

It had burned through her oesophagus and into a main artery leading to her heart. Doctors said Harper-Lee needed to be transferred to Birmingham Children\u2019s Hospital but would not survive the journey.<\/p>\n

Stacy said: \u201cWhen they said she\u2019d swallowed a battery, I had no idea she wouldn\u2019t make it. Then they said she wouldn\u2019t survive and I collapsed. I said \u2018Please try and do everything you can to save my baby girl\u2019. All I can remember is him saying \u2018I’m so sorry\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s all I heard before I went into shock and fell to the floor. I kept saying \u2018I need to go and tell my other daughters\u2019 but they already knew because they heard me scream, which was so piercing.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stacy (R) campaigning for button battery safety(Image: Jam Press)<\/p>\n

She passed away on May 21, 2021. Despite her heartbreak, Stacy has dedicated herself to raising awareness about the dangers of button batteries. She added: \u201cLife in the past five years has been so hard. I’m still grieving. I’ve lost friendships and relationships with family members because they remind me of Harper-Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone that was close to Harper I don’t see or speak to anymore because when I see them, I see her. I’ve been raising awareness for the last five years because I promised my baba that I wouldn’t let her die in vain. I don’t want any other families going through what me, Jamie-Leigh and Kyla have gone through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A two-year old tragically passed away after swallowing a button battery from an LED light remote 13:14, 21…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2864,59,102,2783,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-382643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-family","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-staffordshire","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}