An emergency X-ray would have alerted doctors to a battery which was swallowed by a four-year-old Sunshine Coast girl, a coronial inquest has heard.
Summer Steer became the first child to die in Australia from swallowing a button-style battery when she passed away on June 30, 2013.
Doctor Jacob du Plessis was the doctor who twice examined and discharged Summer from Noosa Hospital on the same day she died.
Summer had been vomiting blood but Dr du Plessis was convinced it was the result of a nose bleed, the Maroochydore court was told on Wednesday.
Dr du Plessis told the court it was a tragic misdiagnosis, especially when emergency X-rays were available.
Coroner John Hutton asked: “If you’d done one, you would have known what caused it?”
“I would,” Dr du Plessis replied.
Dr du Plessis told Coroner John Hutton, he learnt lessons from the young girl’s death, including not to be fixated on one diagnosis, taking better notes and consulting more with other doctors.
Summer’s mother Andrea Shoesmith told the inquest she had no idea where the battery, which was later found lodged in her oesophagus, came from.
Ms Shoesmith said she was unaware of the dangers posed by button batteries until she was briefed by doctors shortly after her daughter died.
She rejected claims made by her daughter’s GP that she was sure Summer had not swallowed the battery when he examined her on June 17.
She also refuted the doctor’s claim that she had told him Summer had been playing with a toy with button batteries after the June consultation.
After Ms Shoesmith’s appearance at the inquest, she and Summer’s father Brad Steer released a statement:
Our emotions are pretty raw at the moment.
The events of two years ago are like yesterday.
We want to thank the coroner and the media for helping raise awareness of the dangers of button batteries, the need to know if and where button batteries are in your house, to keep them out of reach of children and, importantly to get urgent medical attention.
We do not know where and when Summer got the battery she swallowed.
It could’ve been from the footpath so please dispose of batteries, new or flat, safely with children in mind.
A lot of people are being questioned, a lot of information is being collected and we are waiting for the coroner’s findings before we might make any further comments.
Thank you for respecting our need for privacy at this time.
Ms Shoesmith told the inquest Summer complained of a sore stomach, high temperature and black bowel movements and went to the family doctor on June 13 and 17.
On the day she died, Summer suffered a nose bleed and began vomiting blood and was taken to Noosa Hospital twice but was discharged.
After sleeping for an hour at home, Summer again vomited blood and collapsed.
She was taken to Noosa Hospital for a third time before being flown to a Brisbane hospital, where she suffered a heart attack and died.
Ms Shoesmith told the inquest more should be done to warn the public about the dangers of button batteries.