Cara and Terry George light up when they think of their daughter.
"She was a beautiful, happy, healthy baby girl and she was and always will be our true joy," said Cara.
But they endured crushing heartbreak when Brenna died at just 18 months after swallowing a battery.
"We scoured our house and we have no idea where it came from," said Terry.
It was a lithium battery - the round kind found in many household items.
"Bathroom scales, car remotes, remotes for your automatic garage door openers," said Colleen Driscoll, International Association for Child Safety.
They are even in those musical greeting cards. The International Association for Child Safety wants parents to be aware of the possible danger lurking in lithium batteries.
"Parents just don't understand the risk," said Driscoll.
The National Capital Poison Center recently did a study looking at 8,000 battery ingestions, not all of which are lithium. But they discovered the bigger, round lithium batteries pose much more than the typical choking hazard. They can get caught in the esophagus and still generate a current inside the child's body.
"It would be like dropping drain opener in tiny little drops into your child's esophagus," said Dr. Toby Litovitz, National Capitol Poison Center.
Safety experts want to see warning labels on products using lithium batteries and they'd like to see manufacturers change the battery compartments.
"Sixty-two percent of children are getting batteries out of the product, and they're doing that because the battery compartment isn't secure," said Litovitz.
They'd like to see compartments changed to require screws. Until that happens, they suggest parents tape the compartments shut and keep lithium battery-powered items out of reach.
The Georges still don't know where Brenna fond the battery she ingested but they're doing what they can to alert other parents.
"Our only hope is to save lives and if we can give one child his or her future and spare one family this unimaginable pain and devastation then we'll be doing something for her," said Cara.
And don't forget about securing the lid on the trash can. Some of these children managed to pull the batteries out of the trash.
The safety agencies say the battery companies are very helpful in the attempt to increase awareness, but the biggest push now is to have safety alerts and change the battery compartments.










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