The grieving parents of a 4-year-old Washington boy who tragically lost his life are warning parents to put away all push pins.
Axel died last month after he inhaled a common household drawing pin. He started choking and turned blue with all efforts to help him going unsuccessful.
The boy was transported to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital where doctors determined he had inhaled the thumbtack and it wedged “between his ribs”.
“They said there was nothing in his throat to get out,” Axel’s distraught mom, Ayla, said. “A thumbtack had punctured his left lung and had blocked the way for his right lung to breathe too.”
Following a tracheotomy that lasted for two hours, the pin was removed but Axel was unable to breathe by himself and placed on life support.
“The doctors told us that because he was without oxygen for so long and went into cardiac arrest five times, he wasn’t going to come back from that. They told us not to hope, but we did anyway.”
The mom said that after four days on life support, doctors ruled him brain dead: “His pupil twitched a bit and when they took him off life support, he tried to take a breath. He tried.”
Axel passed away shortly in the arms of his devastated parents who are now warning people of such a “normal thing to have in your house but only takes one little kid to pick it up.”
“If you have pins around the house, throw them out or lock them up. It’s not worth your child’s life or the pain.”
