text: A 10-year-old Houston girl had a brush with death after swallowing a piece of the latest must-have toy — a fidget spinner. 
   
   Britton Joniec underwent emergency surgery on Monday, according to her mom, who described the terrifying ordeal involving the propeller-shaped contraption. 
   
   “On the way home from a fun swim meet, I heard Britton make an odd retching noise in the back seat as I was driving,” Kelly Rose Joniec wrote on Facebook. 
   
   “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,” she continued. “She pointed to her throat saying she’d swallowed something, so I attempted Heimlich but there was no resistance.” 
   
   The girl had put one of three bushings from the spinner in her mouth to clean it — but somehow swallowed the metal piece. 
   
   Her mom drove to an urgent care center, where medical workers were unable to determine whether it was lodged in her airway or her esophagus. 
   
   The girl was then rushed to Texas Children’s Hospital in The Woodlands, just north of Houston, where X-rays showed the nickel-size bushing was stuck in her esophagus. 
   
   “The GI doctor was fascinated… 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,” Joniec wrote. 
   
   Finally, the doctor used an endoscope to remove the object. 
   
   “Fortunately, we had a positive outcome, but it was pretty scary there for a while,” the mom said. 
   
   Joniec had a word of caution for parents about the toy, which originally was designed as a therapeutic tool for kids with ADHD and autism. 
   
   “Fidget spinners are the current craze so they are widely distributed. Kids of all ages may be getting them, but not all spinners come with age-appropriate warnings,” she said. 
   
   She pointed out that the bushings pop out easily and can pose a potential choking hazard for young children. 
   
   The twirling toys have become so popular lately that they’ve been banned in some schools. ||||| They're the flavor of the week, but "fidget spinners" may have spun out of control after a Texas girl swallowed part of hers. 
   
   The toy, which usually features a trio of metal bushings rotating around a central axis, has whipped up a twister of attention this spring, but a Houston-area mom said she was shocked when one of the parts came loose and ended up in her daughter’s throat on Saturday. 
   
   “On the way home from a fun swim meet, I heard Britton make an odd retching noise in the back seat as I was driving. Looking back in the mirror, I saw her face turning red and drool pouring from her mouth,�? Kellie Rose Joniec said on Facebook. 
   
   Her daughter Britton said that she swallowed the metal bit after putting it in her mouth to clean it, and a trip to the hospital showed that the bushing had been lodged in her esophagus. 
   
   Kids love fidget spinner craze, but teachers not so much 
   
   Joniec said she was grateful that surgery removed the bushing, but warned fellow parents about letting their younger children play with the spinners. 
   
   “The bushings pop out easily, so if you have young kids (under 8 yr old) keep in mind that these present a potential choking hazard,�? she said. 
   
   This reporter tried but failed to pop out a bushing from an American-flag themed fidget spinner he bought Wednesday afternoon. 
   
   It is not known exactly how many fidget spinners have been sold in recent weeks, though versions of toy take up the top 14 spots on Amazon’s best-selling toys list. 
   
   Police warn about ‘teddy bear ecstasy’ after 4 teens hospitalized 
   
   Though popular among kids who trade time on their hands for sessions handling the spinners, some of the 500,000 people who shared Joniec’s story on Facebook are likely adults driven nuts by the devices. 
   
   Schools such as PS 29 in Brooklyn have banned fidget spinners in some classrooms and at lunch, with one student’s mom telling the News, “I can see how teachers might hate them.�? 
   
   Some have said that the devices help those with ADHD, though many remain skeptical. ||||| Fidget spinners are taking over the world with their addictive fun, but one mother has warned of an unexpected danger that come with the toys. 
   
   Kelly Rose Joniec posted on Facebook about how she had to rush her daughter to the hospital because of an unfortunate incident with her spinner. Joniec was bringing her daughter, Britton, home from a swim meet on Saturday when she noticed her daughter making a “retching” sound and found out that Britton was choking. 
   
   “She said she’d put part of her fidget spinner in her mouth to clean it and somehow swallowed it,” Joniec said in her post. 
   
   A fidget spinner has weighted bearings, which can be removed and are about the size of a quarter, to help it spin so smoothly. The toys are supposed to be silent, but the bearings should be cleaned regularly to keep them from making noise. That’s how Joniec said her daughter got a bearing stuck in her throat. 
   
   When urgent care couldn’t tell where the bearing was, the mother and daughter were rushed to the Texas Children’s Hospital’s Woodlands location via ambulance. Britton eventually had to have surgery. 
   
   “After multiple, very stressful attempts to place an IV, Britton was taken to surgery to endoscopically locate and remove the object,” Joniec wrote. “Fortunately we had a positive outcome, but it was pretty scary there for a while.” 
   
   Fidget spinners can help channel the restlessness in children sometimes caused by autism or ADHD, but are so distracting that classrooms across the country are banning the toy. 
   
   Joniec’s post has gotten over 500,000 shares and comments as parents thank her for sharing the warning. It’s unclear how old her daughter is, but she mentions that the toys are dangerous for children under 8 years old.
target: – Fidget spinners, the hottest toy on the market, may also pose a serious choking risk. So says a mother in a Facebook post that's gone viral with more than 710,000 shares after her 10-year-old daughter swallowed one of the toy's weighted bearings. Kelly Rose Joniec, a Houston-area mom, had been driving home from a swim meet Saturday when her daughter Britton started to make "an odd retching noise in the back seat," she writes. When Joniec saw Britton's red face and drool in her mirror, she pulled over. After futile attempts to dislodge the piece, Joniec rushed her daughter to an urgent-care facility, which then helped arrange for an ambulance to a children's hospital, reports the New York Daily News. Fidget spinners boast nearly silent operation, but their weighted bearings, roughly the size of a quarter, must be cleaned on occasion, reports HuffPost. Britton had popped one in her mouth and it ended up lodged in her esophagus; she had to have it surgically removed on Monday, per the New York Post, but she's now doing fine. While some claim the toys help students with attention disorders, others are skeptical or at the very least annoyed, and the Daily News notes that some schools have banned them at lunch and in some classrooms. Still, versions of the toy fill the top 20 spots on the list of best-selling toys on Amazon. (See why the toy's inventor isn't making a penny off them.)