The 3-year-old girl addicted to eating rocks, bricks, lightbulbs and sticks

Sep 27, 2011 |

London

Tags:

best picks

A young girl who is suffering from a rare medical condition is so addicted to eating harmful objects that she ate an entire lightbulb.

Natalie Hayhurst, 3, who suffers from Pica, a disorder characterised by an appetite for non-nutritive substances has eaten rocks, sticks, bricks, house plants and an entire light bulb.

While her favourite delicacies are rocks and sticks, the girl has been known to wolf down almost a whole brick, ‘like it was a chocolate chip cookie.’

Her mother Colleen, 31, says every day is a constant battle of wills as she tries to stop her daughter eating something that could kill her.

“I have had to call this poison helpline so many times that it's on my speed dial. You name it Natty's tried to eat it,” the Daily Mail quoted her mom as saying.

Colleen, of Terre Haute, Indiana, revealed the moment her daughter's disease nearly killed her after eating an entire lightbulb that she tore from a bedroom night-light in February.

Since the accident, Natalie is watched around the clock by Colleen, father David and brother Andrew, 5.

“My big worry is that one day she'll eat something poisonous and we won't be there in time,” said Colleen, an office manager.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/98662" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f02b7b2e0f81b739442cc40b3020dca9" value="form-f02b7b2e0f81b739442cc40b3020dca9" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87812041" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>