A one-year-old girl had been sent home from hospital on three separate occasions after a button battery became lodged in her oesophagus and eventually killed her.
Isabella Reese died on February 4, 2015 – three hours after her mother Allison found her ‘saturated’ in her own blood, a Victorian coroner heard.
She died from multiple cardiac arrests while on the operating table at Sunshine Hospital, The Age reports.
The coroner heard Isabella’s family had first taken her to the hospital in January after she was crying and vomiting.
While her father says he told the hospital she had swallowed something, it was not recorded anywhere.
She was sent home but returned two days later with a fever.
Doctors said she had a urinary tract infection and was given antibiotics.
On January 21, she finished her course of antibiotics and the hospital noted she was improving.
However, when she arrived back at the hospital for the last time, doctors sent her to be x-rayed, and the button battery was found.
Isabella passed away two weeks later.
In a tribute to their little girl, her family wrote “what we would give to have another chance to hear your voice, to feel your kiss and to see you grow. Our hearts are broken. We love you Bella.”
