Published: June 30, 2009 10:31 pm      

Toddler shocked by toy lamp to undergo plastic surgery

By KANDACE MCCOY

kandace.mccoy@register-news.com

WALTONVILLE — When asked what you tell others about lamps, 3-year-old Emily Mannen will tell you this:

Don’t play with lamps.

A year ago, Emily was playing in her room and became a bit too curious about her Care Bears novelty lamp which sat beside her bed on her dresser.

“She wasn’t in there 10 minutes,” recalled Emily’s mother, Lynsey. “And I heard her scream. I met her in the hallway and she said, ‘It pushed me off.’ And I saw the lamp on the bed with the lamp shade, light bulb and protective barrier off.”

Emily, Lynsey discovered, had dismantled her Care Bear Lamp, and stuck her fingers into the socket of the appliance. Electricity shot through Emily’s arm, traveling up the arm and came out the toddler’s mouth, which Lynsey said “blew out the top” of Emily’s lip.

“It looked like a crater, about the size of my thumb and looked like she had candle wax on it,” she said previously.

And though Emily is now doing better a year later, she will be undergoing plastic surgery so doctors can “line up her lip better.”

“There’s a knot on her upper lip — scar tissue from where she was shocked,” Lynsey said. She said her daughter also seems to have problems with saliva secretions and will drool sometimes. She added she also suspects the incident affected Emily’s speech.

“She’s seen the speech therapists, but now she’s also saying more things,” she said. “But her lip looks good compared to what it originally looked like.”

Emily still remembers what happened last June and will sometimes talk about her “bump” on her lip, Lynsey explained.

“But she’s not too self-conscious about it. But she also doesn’t mess with stuff or lamps like that.”

Lynsey also says she hopes other parents and children not only learned from Emily’s accident, but will continue to educate others.

“There have been a few people say things to us because they recognize us from the media, or they will ask how she is doing, or say, ‘I never though something like that would happen,’” Lynsey remarked. “But it’s also that time of year when people have fans going because of the heat and kids like to mess with that stuff. I just want to remind people that if it could happen to me, it could happen to them.”

Waltonville Grade School also held an informational safety discussion for parents and teachers, she said, and discussed electrical safety.

But despite the terrifying moment when she learned her daughter had been shocked, Lynsey says there has been one thing positive about the incident.

“We’re all a little closer since it happened,” she said. “It makes you more aware of what could have happened.”

In addition to the surgery on Monday, Emily will also be receiving a series of steroid shots which she may have to continue into her teenage years, Lynsey noted.

“It’s been a year. She’s still doing fine, but it’s still just getting started for us. I feel like her lip was just getting healed, but if she’ll have a more pretty smile — I want her to feel confident about herself.”