Mauro Lopez Banegas, seven, was left paralysed and in a coma after inhaling the toxic dust from a plastic whistle
A young boy was left fighting for his life after breathing in glitter.
Mauro Lopez Banegas, seven, was left paralysed and in a coma after inhaling the shiny substance.
He he had put inside a plastic whistle he had been given as birthday gift.
His mum Berta Banegas, 34, said he started playing with it when he got home: "I heard him using the whistle and he put glitter inside to blow it and make a sparkle.
"A few minutes later he started coughing quite severely because he had breathed in instead.
"I took him to hospital where they gave him some medication that seemed to sooth things down, but the next day he was worse and was taken to hospital again where despite the care of doctors it had gone downhill."
The boy ended up in intensive care at the Eva Peron Provincial Children's Health Centre in the city of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, but doctors said that at one point his heart had stopped beating and his condition was so serious it was not even possible to move him safely to a more specialist hospital.
The only thing they could do other than blood transfusions to stabilise him.
However, surprisingly, the youngster has opened his eyes and regain some limited movement to his limbs after two weeks on life support.
Hospital spokeswoman Gabriela Lopez Cruz said: "The situation with the glitter in the lungs and the damage it has caused was significant and all we could do was try and support him and hope that the glitter will eventually be passed out of the lungs."
She said the glitter included copper and zinc metal particles that, because they were so small, had passed through the boy's lungs and into his blood, poisoning him in the process.
Mum Berta said: "I have been told that he may well survive now and it's a lot more optimistic than it was two weeks ago, but we now need to wait and see what damage he might have suffered to his brain and what damage has been done to his kidneys.
"We are not out of the woods yet but I am very optimistic compared to the bleak days we were living in a short while ago."
