Harper-Lee’s Legacy
“These five weeks have been absolute torture. I feel so lost. And all through a button battery that we didn’t know the dangers of.”
Stacy, mother of Harper-Lee
This should have been Harper-Lee’s first year of school. But the last time her mum saw her she was being wheeled into theatre. Surgeons were unable to save her.
Unknown to her mum, Harper-Lee had swallowed a button battery from a remote control. Within hours it burnt through her food pipe to her main artery and she haemorrhaged to death. She was two years-old.
Button batteries can have devastating consequences if they are swallowed and lodge in a young child’s food pipe. Energy from the battery reacts with saliva to create caustic soda; the same chemical used to unblock drains. It can burn through tissue and cause catastrophic bleeding in as little as two hours.
Improving button battery safety
We have been working tirelessly to improve the safety of everyday products in our homes, particularly those powered by button batteries.
We are honoured to carry on the work of the Harper-Lee Foundation following its dissolution. Its achievements are testament to Stacy’s enormous courage and the tireless work of its Chair, Jo Gideon.
Through Harper-Lee’s Legacy, we will continue to drive forward improvements in button battery safety, raising awareness and improving the safety of button batteries and the many products powered by them in our homes. We won’t rest until no more families experience the anguish that Stacy’s did.
With your support we can:
- Reach millions of families with our social posts on button battery safety.
- Share our time-lapse video showing the harm caused by a button battery.
- Create free downloads to display and distribute in community settings.
- Print free resources on button battery safety, including our hugely popular picture-based booklets for parents with poor literacy.
- Offer free delivery of our resources to grassroots staff and volunteers working alongside vulnerable parents in deprived communities.
