A toddler was hospitalized after she accidentally swallowed 20 button batteries at her home in Queensland, Australia, on Saturday.

The toddler, identified as two-year-old Saphira Harwood, found a packet of batteries and opened it before swallowing them within 20 minutes. Her mother, Hope Summers, said she was horrified when she discovered what had happened and immediately contacted emergency services.

Saphira was immediately taken to Toowoomba hospital and was later flown to Brisbane after she complained about experiencing pain in her stomach. She underwent emergency surgery to have the batteries removed.

According to Summers, her daughter suffered superficial burns to her stomach and was close to suffering permanent damage.

"She was already in that danger zone. I've been told repeatedly, if we waited until that stage, it would have been too late. The second we were in Brisbane, it was surgery,” she said.

"The fact she told me they were 'yummy' is the scariest part," said Summers. “I cannot believe how quickly it turned from her playing to her screaming her lungs out on the hospital floor,” she added.

Tony Hucker, Queensland Ambulance Service clinical director said that the girl was really lucky as that the situation could have been much worse if it wasn’t for the quick response of the mother.

“Luckily they’ve all now been removed and she’s going to be OK, but button batteries are silent killers,” he said adding that products with button batteries must be made child-proof and avoided as much as possible.

Saphira recovered after the surgery. However, her mother said she got rid of all the batteries in her house following the incident. "Needless to say they've all disappeared from my house now, never again," she said.

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In this photo, an ambulance transporting a patient is reflected in the window of another ambulance at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, Oct. 9, 2008. Getty Images/ David McNew
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