4 ms·
My brother is an Er physician and yesterday we are all together and our dad is changing his hearing aid battery at the table. My brother points down at the bat
by lakeeffect 11y ago
My brother is an Er physician and yesterday we are all together and our dad is changing his hearing aid battery at the table. My brother points down at the battery on the table and says be careful thats a baby killer explaining that once swallowed the kid almost always dies.
- aurhum 11y agoThe article is about lithium-based batteries. Zinc-Air batteries killing children is news to me. link?
- tbrownaw 11y agoIt has nothing to do with the kind of battery, just the size. It has to do with swallowing something that can electrolyze anything wet (like the surface of your insides) into nasty chemicals that will eat holes in important things.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tnecniv 11y agoMoreover, the bigger ones tend to get stuck places. This wouldn't be too big an issue by itself (doctors have told me they are easy to remove if you know about them), but that they just sit there and burn into the flesh in the same spot. To top it off, swallowing presents flu-like symptoms until it's too late.
- aurhum 11y agoThe cell chemistry only plays an indirect role here (neither zinc nor lithium are terribly healthy in a child's body I guess). The lithium batteries are thrown away with a fair bit of energy remaining: Internal resistance will go up too far to be useful to power something, but the cell can still electrolize when inside the body. Zinc-air primaries on the other hand tend to be completely empty when removed from the hearing aid; they have a really nice flat discharge profile.