A 3-year-old boy got stuck inside a “Hello Kitty” claw machine at a shopping center in Australia, leading police to devise an unusual rescue operation.
Queensland Police shared footage of the predicament on X on Thursday, noting that the “adventurous” boy named Ethan had “crawled up into” the toy machine at the mall in Capalaba. The boy could be seen in the video grinning and looking perfectly content as he sat amid a mountain of “Hello Kitty” stuffed toys, while police officers inspected the machine to see how they could safely extract him.
Ultimately, officers had to shatter the glass to pull Ethan out.
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The boy’s father, Timothy Hopper, was quoted by The Guardian as saying he’d turned his back for a “split second” only to see Ethan had scurried up into the toy machine.
“He loves claw machines… As he always does, he opened up the flap to be an opportunist. Then, within a split second, he crawled into the machine, the door closed behind him. He stood up and realised what happened and he was king of the mountain,” Hopper said.
Senior Constable Stuart Power told reporters that police weren’t bothered by the incident. “When we got the call there was a bit of a smile in the car. Both [of us] as fathers, thinking what our boys would do,” he said.
