A mother in Massachusetts has claimed that a popular kids toy left her family needing to be rushed to hospital.
The woman in question - who goes by the username @steph_murphy on TikTok - shared her story on social media, claiming her family were all admitted to the ER after allegedly being 'poisoned' by an EasyBake oven.
Stephanie explained that her husband Ryan and their daughter Nora had opened the Hasbro cooking device - created back in 1960s as a means of introducing children to the world of baking - and used it for the very first time.
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"As soon as they plugged it in, Nora was like, 'This smells weird'," the mother told viewers. "And my husband just assumed it was because it was a toy that smells like plastic when you first plug it in."
Hasbro told People Magazine in a statement: "Hasbro takes all product safety concerns seriously. Hasbro’s Easy Bake Ovens meets or exceeds all applicable safety standards.
"If consumers have any questions or concerns about their products, we encourage them to contact Hasbro Consumer Care at 1-800-255-5516."
She went on to allege that Ryan also overlooked the initial concern, being that he lost the ability to smell or taste since being diagnosed with Covid in 2020.
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"They were making a two-layer red velvet cake, and you had to cook one tray at a time," Steph continued.
Upon baking the first layer, however, the trio discovered it hadn't cooked all the way through and were put off the idea altogether, throwing away the botched cake and unplugging the oven.
Within five minutes, Nora says she began complaining of chest pain.
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"Shortly after that, she said she was having trouble breathing," Steph claimed, adding that she checked her daughter's oxygen levels using at at-home device, which revealed that her intake had decreased to 89 percent.
It was on the journey to the emergency room that both Steph and her husband claim to have began struggling to breathe themselves.
While their little girl was being checked out and put onto oxygen, the mother says Ryan was triaged and told his oxygen levels had decreased to 93 percent and was given the same treatment.
The trio were then hooked up to IVs, underwent chest x-rays, blood tests and were given heart monitors.
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"They [doctors] assumed it was carbon monoxide poisoning," Steph explained, adding that Nora was beginning to suffer chills while she and Ryan became nauseas.
"The chest x-rays showed that both Nora and Ryan had compromised lungs and what looked to be pneumonia symptoms, vs my x-ray which came back clear.
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"They think it's because the two of them were the ones actually at the oven baking whilst I was in the other room and that I just got exposed to it whilst I was in the living room whilst I was cooking," she added.
The mum says the fire department were then sent to the Murphy home to 'check the air quality', but by that point, the cooking device had been unplugged for eight hours.
Nora was then transferred to Boston Children's Hospital with her parents, but following an improvement in the condition of her chest x-ray, she was discharged.
Speaking of the children's cooking device - which they later disposed of - Steph explained that professionals allegedly still aren't certain whether the illness was caused by a 'manufacturing defect' or a 'malfunction of sorts'.
"But there was some kind of poison that got emitted from that machine when we plugged it in," she went on to claim.
"And now my husband and daughter are both on a five-day steroid, an inhaler every four hours - and the craziest thing is that we didn't even eat the product and we didn't even cook it for the whole amount of time."
Tyla contacted Hasbro for further comment.
Topics: Health, Parenting, Food and Drink, Shopping, US News