A dad is warning other parents not to buy toys with magnets after his son swallowed them and ended up requiring surgery.

Two-year-old Jimmy Bui, from Ramsgate, had to be taken to Evelina London Children's Hospital for the operation and spent three weeks recovering there.

His dad Hung Bui said: “Jimmy swallowed tiny magnets used to stick a note onto the fridge.

"He started to get tired and then stopped eating and going to the toilet, so we took him to our local A&E.

“We had no idea that he had swallowed three of the magnets until we saw it on the x-ray.

“The magnets had stuck together causing a hole in Jimmy’s bowel."

Following the ordeal in June, the 33-year-old is warning other parents of the dangers of the toys.

“We are always very careful, but this still happened, so I want to warn other parents out there to be very vigilant," he said.

"I would urge them not to buy toys containing these magnets.

"We don’t have any of these magnets in our household anymore.”

His warning is echoed by paediatric surgeons after cases of children swallowing magnets shot up five-fold.

The Children’s Surgery Foundation issued the warning as research over the last five years has revealed a huge increase in such incidents - and they say some of these are down to TikTok viral videos.

Mr Hemanshoo Thakker, a consultant paediatric surgeon at Evelina, said: “This year alone Evelina London has seen 15 new cases of children swallowing magnets and have operated on seven of them, a couple of whom were very unwell.”

Research carried out by four major hospitals situated in the south east of England found that like Jimmy, 251 children were admitted after swallowing ‘foreign objects’ between 2016 and 2020.

Of these objects, 37 percent were coins, 21 percent were magnets, and 17 percent were small, button batteries.

Although only 2% of children who swallowed button batteries required surgery to remove them, a staggering 42 percent of those who swallowed magnets, required either keyhole surgery or more invasive procedures like incisions in the abdominal wall to gain access to the gut.

Mr Thakkar explained the extent of the threat: “If children swallow one magnet it will probably pass through their body harmlessly but if they swallow two or more magnets, especially at different times, the magnets, which are increasingly very powerful, are forced together in the intestines, squeezing the tissue so that the blood supply is cut off.

“Significant damage can be caused within hours with holes being made in the children’s intestines which cause the children to be unwell, and sometimes seriously ill, with many requiring complex operations to remove the magnets and requiring long periods of recovery time in hospital.”

Miss Caroline Pardy, a paediatric surgeon at Evelina, said that she had spoken to parents who were "very angry" that their child had swallowed magnets whilst at school.

She said: "Such magnets are sometimes used as ’sensory’ toys for children with additional needs. In other circumstances, the magnets have been brought into school by other children.”

Miss Pardy is urging schools to “ban such magnets, regardless of the age of the children”.

The surgeons said that even teenagers are at risk of suffering terrible consequences.

Social media trends on TikTok are driving these accidents.

Mr Thakkar added “We are seeing some children who follow influencers on TikTok who use magnets to create false piercings on their tongues and cheeks and when the children have copied them, they have accidentally swallowed the magnets.”