--- title: Why Fidget Spinners Can Be a Choking Hazard description: After a child swallowed a metal bushing that popped out of the toy, she needed emergency surgery to have it removed. canonical: https://time.com/4782237/fidget-spinners-choking-hazard/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-17T15:20:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:02:52.919Z article:section: Health og:title: This Warning About Fidget Spinners Is Going Viral og:description: "These present a potential choking hazard" og:url: https://time.com/4782237/fidget-spinners-choking-hazard/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee6b30269f25f23e/6988cc4f7cdbac2ab4d5840c/gettyimages-679401354.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3911 og:image:height: 2200 og:image:alt: Latest Toy Craze Fidget Spinners, Wildly Popular With Kids og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Warning About Fidget Spinners Is Going Viral twitter:description: "These present a potential choking hazard" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee6b30269f25f23e/6988cc4f7cdbac2ab4d5840c/gettyimages-679401354.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # After a Fidget Spinner Sent Her Daughter to the Hospital, Mom’s PSA Is Going Viral > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=13843e16-ed98-445f-b10d-fd387779f7da&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Fidget Spinners: The New Fad Sweeping the Nation [Watch (HLS stream): Fidget Spinners: The New Fad Sweeping the Nation](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9EaiZtPR.m3u8) (1:41)  _Published 2017-05-01. Staffers review fidget spinners, and discuss whether or not they'll last the test of time._ by [Amanda MacMillan / Health.com](https://time.com/author/health-com/) ## Amanda MacMillan / Health.com Contributor May 17, 2017 3:20 PM UTC by [Amanda MacMillan / Health.com](https://time.com/author/health-com/) ## Amanda MacMillan / Health.com Contributor May 17, 2017 3:20 PM UTC Fidget spinners are the “it” toy right now, especially among primary-school kids. But a mom in Texas is warning parents about a potential danger, after her daughter nearly choked on a metal bushing and needed emergency surgery to remove it. Kelly Rose Joniec posted about the harrowing experience Monday on Facebook, and her post has since been shared more than 440,000 times. In the post, she writes that she was driving her daughter Britton home from a swim meet when she heard an “odd retching noise” coming from the back seat. “Looking back in the mirror, I saw her face turning red and drool pouring from her mouth—she could utter noises but looked panicked so I immediately pulled over,” Joniec wrote. “She pointed to her throat saying she’d swallowed something, so I attempted Heimlich but there was no resistance.” Britton was able to tell her mom that she had put part of her fidget spinner in her mouth “to clean it,” and had accidentally swallowed it. The pair rushed to an urgent care facility, where Britton was checked for choking. But the physicians there couldn’t figure out where exactly in her airway the spinner piece—a metal bushing about the size of a quarter—had lodged itself. From there, the mother and daughter were taken to Texas Children’s Hospital in an ambulance, where an X-ray showed the bushing was lodged in Britton’s esophagus. “The GI doctor was fascinated,” Joniec wrote. “He’d only just learned of fidget spinners that morning when he was at the mall with his son, so it was a surprise to be faced with one in a case a few hours later.” **_Health.com:_** [_15 Signs You May Have Adult ADHD_](http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490145,00.html/?xid=time) Britton was given an IV and taken into surgery, where doctors used an endoscope—a narrow tube with a tiny camera on the end—to locate and remove the metal bushing. “Fortunately we had a positive outcome, but it was pretty scary there for a while,” Joniec wrote, “not only because of the initial ingestion, but then the concern about the composition and structure of the object, and finally, the risk with general anesthesia.” Joniec used her post to offer a word of caution to parents, noting that the small metal bushings in fidget spinners can pop out easily, and that not all spinners come with age-appropriate warnings. She’s not the first caregiver to issue a warning about the potential choking hazard of fidget spinners. Earlier this month, Georgia resident Teresa Kesterson told a local television station that her 3-year-old grandson had been [playing with a fidget spinner](http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/grandmother-warns-popular-toy-could-be-a-choking-hazard/517930032)—also while riding in the car—when the toy came apart in his hands, leaving him holding tiny pieces including a light-up battery. Thankfully, the boy’s mother noticed what had happened before he could put the pieces in his mouth. Kesterson told WSB-TV that the toy had not come with any language indicating that it could come apart or be a choking hazard, and was not recommended for any specific age range. The term fidget spinner is a generic name to describe the toys, which are usually made of plastic and contain one or more metal bushings on which the outer piece spins; some also contain lights and other battery-operated features. Fidget spinners are sold by a variety of companies, and their product labeling varies. Some online listings contain [warnings about choking hazards](http://aax-us-east.amazon-adsystem.com/x/c/Qg6Vh-5aD7HO61VbLCbb4NgAAAFcFtnfsAEAAAFKAeDTKuk/https://www.amazon.com/Spinner-Stainless-Spinners-Spinning-Relieves/dp/B06ZZCRT9D/ref=as%5Fat?creativeASIN=B06ZZCRT9D&linkCode=w50&tag=healthcom04a-20&imprToken=adFAtBWryfIjzDFzzGA.Mw&slotNum=0), but many do not. _This_ [_article_](http://www.health.com/adult-adhd/fidget-spinners-choking-hazard/?xid=time) _originally appeared on_ [_Health.com_](http://health.com/?xid=time) ## Transcript If i had this in my desk, I would play with it all day. [ MUSIC ] Yeah, they're cool. They've got some nice bearings right there. They spin real nice. It's like a miniature lazy susan. I was wonder like, does it fidget? Does it spin? But now I know it definitely spins. I wish I could spin it easier with one hand. If I have to use both hands, I feel a little more stressed about it. I think it would be really effective. If your mind, sort of, needs whatever service this provides. It's, it'll fill in those blanks. My mind's always spinning, you know. So I feel like I could use this to take the spin off my mind. [ MUSIC ] What? Wait, really? Nine hundred dollars? Does it come with like, [ LAUGH ] Gold? Is it made out of gold? A house? [ LAUGH ] For my kid I'd go 15 bucks. Wow. The most I would spend for this is $ 0. 50 in a vending machine at a taqueria. [ MUSIC ] I can see these things being around for a while in terms of like. Whether they're gonna be a craze forever I don't know. I think it's going to be ageless. I think that if they come in different styles and variations then it would be very trendy. That could definitely last a long time. So I feel like with any little Fad. It come to go. It comes and goes. Yeah. It's like cyclical. And then when you get older you can be like, when I was a kid, I used to fidget with this thing. I used to fidget those spinners. 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