With 2 young non-verbal autistic kids, Christmas can be a massive pain in the ass.
We have to examine everything they get carefully, because EVERYTHING gets chewed on.
We unboxed and examined the "Magnetic Geometric Tiles" sold by Kmart Australia here.
This is on the box for the "Magnetic Geometric Tiles" at Kmart
I wish I had more information on the manufacturer but they seem to be an in-house generic brand owned by Kmart , no real information other then a product code that ONLY shows up at Kmart.
This is what the tiles look like (note, this a different brand as we've already returned the broken ones) :
Different brand, very similar design (but ticker housing)
The difference between the brands is in the quality and thickness of the plastic housing. The tile above has been thrown, crushed and used for a few years now with no problems.
The tile shattered under their own magnetic force and scattered tiny magnets everywhere. We pulled them out of the packet, and held 2 tiles next to each other - the force slammed them into each other once and that was enough to explode the entire frame.
It was actually kinda fascinating and horrifying at the same time the way the entire frame separated and all of the magnets flew out and bunched together in a ball.
I'm sorry - I should have photographed this but I wasn't thinking clearly at the time and we've gotten a refund already. They tried to get us to simply swap it out for another product of the same type - no fucking way.
If we hadn't checked these out, they would have immediately been eaten by our kids (pica) and this could have been fatal.
Not fun - Source
If you swallow small magnets like this then they tend to bunch up and pinch your internal organs , or with some of the stronger Neodymium magnets could potentially pierce straight through causing severe internal bleeding and death.
I'm going to be following this up and trying to get them recalled - but its the day before Christmas so the best I can do for now is try and spread the word.
If you bought magnet toys this Christmas - investigate before giving to your loved ones!
Update : Kmart has responded on FB have passed on the info with this link so I'll add a little more info to verify
- The item was bought from and returned to the Kmart at Redbank Plains Plaza
- The weakest pieces and first to shatter were the large hexagon shapes
Bonus "Adam Ruins Christmas"
This whole "Adam ruins everything" series is amazing , well researched good information presented slickly. Bonus points for an awesome name ;)
All sources/references for this video can be found here .