3-year-old climbs into claw machine and has ‘time of his life.’ Watch how he got out
A toddler with a love of claw machines had the “time of his life” when he climbed inside one of the toy-filled machines in Australia. A video shows how police officers rescued him.
Three-year-old Ethan and his family were grocery shopping in Capalaba on Saturday, Jan. 27, when they passed a claw machine, Queensland Police said in a Feb. 1 Facebook post.
“My son loves the claw machines,” Ethan’s dad, Timothy Hopper, said in Feb. 1 a news conference, according to The Guardian. Whenever Ethan plays the machines, “he always opens the flap just to be an opportunist.”
At the shopping mall, Ethan opened the flap of the claw machine. “Within a split second, he crawled into the machine, and the door closed behind him and he stood up and realized what had happened,” Hopper said at the news conference streamed on Facebook by 9 News, an Australian outlet.
“I had zero chance to react to it,” Hopper said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “It was unbelievable how fast he got up there.”
Once inside the toy-filled box, Ethan “was having the time of his life,” his dad said at the news conference. “There was a brief moment where he got a little bit nervous, and then, when he realized he was the center of attention, he was jumping around. He started throwing a couple toys out the chute saying, ‘free toys.’ He was trying to show off.”
“At first, it was funny. I couldn’t help but laugh,” Hopper said. “He wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t sad … and then reality sunk in, about how am I gonna get him out.”
A bystander notified the building’s management, who contacted Queensland police, the family said.
A video shows what happened after the police officers arrived. Ethan is sitting inside the claw machine surrounded by stuffed animals and looks pretty happy.
The officers tapped the box and identified it as glass, the video shows. They instruct Ethan’s parents to get him to move to the back corner and cover his eyes. With some directing from his parents, the toddler complies.
The video shows the cops shatter the front glass pane. Ethan turns around, seemingly unhurt, and starts climbing over the stuffed toys toward the officers who lift him out.
“Come here buddy, there you go,” one officer says in the video.
Ethan’s family thanked the police officers for their help and applauded the way they handled the situation.
“We walked past that same area yesterday,” Hopper said at the news conference. “They’ve got a brand new machine there, and Ethan walks past and points at the machine, (and says) ‘Don’t worry, dad. I won’t do it again.’”
Capalaba is on the outskirts of Brisbane in Queensland and about 550 miles northeast of Sydney.
