10:48 AM CDT on Friday, April 7, 2006

By Vicente Arenas / 11 News

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It's supposed to be a learning toy, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission said one child has died and four others have been seriously hurt.

One of those victims lives in Houston.

Some said the toy is too dangerous for kids.

Caleb Neff is a healthy 5-year-old boy. That wasn't the case just last month.

KHOU-TV

The magnets in this toy can be swallowed and cause harm to children.

"He was very seriously ill," said his mother, Melissa Neff.

His mother said doctors couldn't figure out what was causing severe stomach pain and unstoppable vomiting.

"He was in shock when we got to Texas Children's," said Neff.

Neff, an RN herself, thought she was about to lose her boy.

"As a nurse you get a sixth sense when a patient's truly critically ill and they are going downhill. It was very scary to see that in my own child," said Neff.

Then came the shocking discovery. An X-ray showed peculiarly shaped objects pinning two different sections of his intestines together.

Those objects turned out to be two very powerful magnets.

Neff said they came from a game called Magnetix Caleb received as a Christmas gift.

Attorney Paul Cannon said the game, made up of tubes and cartridges, breaks easily and is supposed to be a fun building set of sorts. But the magnets, he said, make the so-called toy a death trap.

"You can set them on either side of your finger and they will stay there," said Cannon.

Warnings on the package, he said, aren't clear enough.

"They definitely need a better warning," Cannon said.

Doctors had to operate on Caleb to remove the magnets.

He's okay now but his mom hopes the same thing doesn't happen to someone else.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a voluntary recall on the Magnetix toy, but Neff's attorneys said that's not enough.

The lawyers said they plan to take the toy's maker to court for damages.

The company did not return our calls Thursday.