A water balloon activity kit sold at Target has been recalled after the death of one child and an intestinal obstruction in another.
On Thursday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Buffalo Games has issued a recall of the Chuckle & Roar Ultimate Water Beads Activity Kits, sold exclusively at Target.
“If the water pellet is swallowed, it expands and can pose a risk of ingestion, suffocation, and intestinal obstruction within the child’s body, resulting in severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration, and risk of death to the child,” the recall states.
Consumers should immediately stop using and take the recalled water beads away from children. Contact Buffalo Games for a full refund and instructions on how to return the product in a prepaid company-supplied postal package or return the product to any Target store.
This recall involves the Chuckle & Roar Ultimate Water Beads Activity Kit, which was sold exclusively at Target stores nationwide and online at Target.com from March 2022 through November 2022 for about $15. On the front of the purple container, a label lists the Ultimate Water Beads Activity Kit — which includes a 2 oz. “jumbo” water beads and 6 oz. of “regular” water beads along with a clear container containing five small fish, a scissor spatula, tweezers, a spatula with a handle, activity cards and instructions. The activity kit was sold in a purple box with the UPC number 079346627035 on the back.
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Mum speaks out after child nearly dies after swallowing a water pellet: ‘It still shocks me’
The recall comes after Buffalo Games learned that a 10-month-old child in Wisconsin died in July 2023 from ingesting the now-recalled water pellets. The recall also cites the story of Folichia Mitchell, whose 9-month-old daughter Kennedy accidentally swallowed a water pellet, leading to organ infections and several surgeries related to intestinal obstruction.
PEOPLE spoke with Mitchell in February about the heartbreaking situation, which led to her baby girl being hospitalized for weeks.
“It makes what should be ordinary life terrifying,” Mitchell said. “It was really scary because we never gave her water pellets and we didn’t expect it. It was so shocking to hear that she only had one water pellet in her body and this is what happened.”
“Then two days would go by and it would be, ‘She has this condition too.’ Her heart stopped working on the second or third operation, so they had to do an emergency artery in her right arm because of, I believe, whatever chemicals were in the pellet.”
“Her blood wasn’t clotting, but then she formed a clot. When they did, they had to get that emergency line going,” she continued. “So for two days her arm was gray and it was like, ‘Her body is swelling and putting pressure. She might as well lose this arm if this medicine doesn’t help.’ ”
“Then she needed surgery, but she doesn’t have any platelets. So she has a clot that we’re trying to get rid of, but her body can’t clot enough to go into surgery. So we have to give her platelets, and then she has no red blood cells, so we have to give an infusion of red blood cells. There are so many things that happen out of nowhere that come out of something we didn’t expect, and it just scares you,” she concluded.
When speaking about her advocacy to get the water balloons off the shelves, Mitchell said she was driven by “fury” that she was being denied the opportunity to make an informed decision as a consumer and parent.
“That really pushed me to keep talking about it because that’s what made me really angry with the company, because I feel like I didn’t make an informed choice when I bought the water pellets,” Mitchell said.
“I didn’t know. So if I’d seen, ‘If you swallow them, you should get medical attention or they could cause organ damage or block the lungs — because I know specifically of a kid who got it stuck in his lungs — then I might have made a different choice .”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education