Jessie Tidyman’s 18-month-old daughter and six-year-old daughter were playing in the bath with a glitter-filled sensory shaker when her toddler let out an ear-piercing scream.
Jessie raced in to see what had happened and discovered the sensory shaker had been opened and leaked all over her toddler, Willow’s body, resulting in acid burns on her stomach and legs.
Chemical burns from Kmart toy
Willow was visibly in pain as Jessie lifted her out of the bath and tried to console her.
“She was playing with her sister and I heard this awful scream, I have never heard her scream like that before. It was like she was in pain,” Jessie told Today. “We pulled her out of the bath and tried to settle her down, but she wouldn’t settle.”
The Queensland mum noticed a small chemical smell from the bath and, after confirming the sensory shaker had been opened, immediately contacted poison control who told her to ring an ambulance.
“When the ambulance officer got there she said ‘It looks like a burn’, so we went to hospital and the doctors and nurses told us ‘Your daughter has first-degree burns.'”
Both of Jessie’s daughters have burn marks on their skin due to the chemical in the fidget toy. Her younger daughter’s legs are peeling, similar to a sunburn while her oldest daughter has a proper burn mark on her body.
Jessie recalls the panic of not only finding her daughters with burns on their bodies but discovering that they were, in fact, acid burns from phosphate acid, something she was not aware would be in a children’s toy.
No ingredients listed
Jessie purchased the fidget toy known as a Sensory Shaker ($9.00) at Kmart but there is no ingredient list so doctors couldn’t determine what was exactly in the toy. It wasn’t until they did testing that the medical staff discovered phosphate acid in the popular fidget toy.
A warning to other parents
Jessie shared her story to warn other parents of the danger of this Kmart fidget toy and is hoping Kmart will act accordingly and take the product off the shelves, or at least list the ingredients on the package or online.
“Luckily my daughter didn’t drink it. I hate to think what would have happened if she did,” she said
Kmart has responded to Jessie’s concerns with the following statement:
“At Kmart, the safety of our customers and team is our number one priority. We are really concerned to hear about this incident and are taking this report extremely seriously and are looking into this customer’s experience with our quality team,” a Kmart spokesperson said.
We encourage this customer to reach out to us directly via our customer service team so that we can begin a proper investigation and offer our support.”
In most instances, when a toy poses a safety threat, it will be recalled. The ACCC is responsible for issuing recalls and while there isn’t an official recall on this Kmart fidget toy yet, it is important to be aware of the risks.
Although the ACCC is really good at keeping the public informed of product safety alerts, there are instances when there isn’t an official recall.
Kmart toy poses a strangulation hazard
Jessie’s warning comes just six weeks after Sydney mum, Racquelle also shared her experience with a popular Kmart sensory toy nearly strangling her son.
The Kmart Sensory Cube features several sensory and soft toys in a cube shape including a star rattle and a soft strawberry, both on a short fabric rope. Racquelle assumed the Kmart sensory toy was perfectly safe for infants until the fabric rope got stuck around her seven-month-old son’s neck.
As Racquelle explains,
My son was in his playpen, rolling around and playing with his toys when he started to struggle, and I noticed that the toy was travelling with him around his head. I went to remove it off his face and it was actually tied and stuck around his neck!!!
I had to untangle the star and strawberry carefully and quickly as my son was struggling to breathe.”
Rcquelle contacted the store and received a voucher but is still waiting for an official reply from Kmart. You can read her full story here.
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