I Swallowed a Button Battery and Wrote a Song About It

Difficult personal experiences can be great inspiration for catchy pop songs--I learned the hard way

This is something I’m not proud of, but several years ago I was feeling peckish and I inadvertantly ate a button battery, thinking it was a candy that someone had discarded on the floor.

Eating button batteries can be very harmful to the health. They can burn through the lining of the stomach and cause serious damage. Swallowing a button battery can also cause it to get lodged in the throat or esophagus and cause serious burns. Children regularly die from eating batteries!

I should have known from the salty, metallic taste and cold hard texture that this was not a candy. Against my best instincts, I swallowed the battery. Almost instantly, I experienced intense stomach pain. I couldn't eat for days.

When it became absolutely unbearable, I called a taxi to take me to the emergency room. But when I got in the taxi I began having an appetite again. It had been so long since I ate that I asked the cabbie to pull over at a chippy on the way to hospital. I purchased a battered sausage and got back in the cab.

I ravenously consumed the perfectly battered sausage and then vomitted in the cab. The taxi driver was very angry and said, "I'm never taking anyone to the hospital again!"

The cabbie tossed me out of the taxi and I was left to walk to hospital. Along the way I composed a song entitled “HELP! I SWALLOWED A BUTTON BATTERY.” It outlines my experience fairly precisely:

When I perform live, I often make sure to do this song as a form of public service to let people know how unsafe it is to swallow button batteries.

If you have swallowed a button battery, it is important to seek medical attention immediately as they can cause serious burns and damage to your internal organs. Don’t make the same mistake I did.