What began as a measure to enhance child safety took an ironic and terrifying turn for one mother when an Apple AirTag, purchased for tracking her children, inadvertently led to her four-year-old daughter swallowing a button battery and requiring hospitalisation. Lisa Marie, a stay-at-home mum now living in Vancouver Island, Canada, had bought four of the tracking devices to 'keep her children safe' during a family trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in April. However, after the AirTags broke during the holiday, she stored them in her car's glovebox, intending to get them repaired.

On May 23, a 'gulping sound' from the back of the car signaled a mother's worst fear. Her daughter, Lily Grace, had swallowed one of the coin-sized button batteries from the AirTag. Lisa Marie and her husband, Markus (48), immediately rushed Lily to the hospital. An x-ray scan confirmed the battery had already reached her bowel, sparing her from immediate surgery but initiating an agonising four-day wait for the battery to pass naturally. During this harrowing period, Lily's three siblings were left 'fearing she was going to die', and Lisa Marie herself endured sleepless nights, reflecting on the profound emotional toll.

Button batteries pose significant and life-threatening risks, capable of causing severe damage to a child's oesophagus or bowel. In some tragic instances, they can burn through the lining completely, creating a hole. The dangers were underscored by the 2020 case of two-year-old Johnathan Huff, who tragically died in Greensboro, North Carolina, after swallowing remote control batteries that burned through his internal organs. Thankfully, Lily Grace was spared lasting side effects, and the battery eventually passed, much to the relief of her family.

Lisa Marie expressed the deep irony of the situation, stating, "The things that I thought would keep my kids safe are actually what caused harm." She recounted her disbelief that Lily would not only access the glove box but also dismantle an AirTag to find and swallow its battery. This incident occurred despite Lisa's repeated warnings to her children about the dangers of button batteries over the years, with the latest warning issued just two weeks prior. Driven by this terrifying experience, Lisa Marie is now vehemently urging other parents to 'throw away' any items containing button batteries. She advises parents to be 'over cautious' and to educate their children, acknowledging that with gifts containing such batteries constantly appearing, it can feel like "a nightmare that won't go away."