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Boy caught in toy machine

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

March 29, 2006 -- For 10 minutes or 15 minutes last Sunday, a 3-year-old boy was surrounded by toys and the master of the elusive claw arcade toy machine.

Heidi Haskin said her son Devinlee ended up stuck inside the toy machine during an afternoon birthday party at Godfather's Pizza in Austin, Minn. Godfather's had no key to the machine in the store, and the fire department had to come to extract the boy who had shimmied up the 7-inch shaft.

"Good Morning America" has reported on two other children who have climbed into a toy machine within the last two years.

"He was pretty comfortable where he was," said fire Chief Dan Wilson, who said the sight was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life. "I saw people with digital cameras, and I asked someone to e-mail me a picture."

Haskin said that Devinlee played with the toys while they waited for the fire department to arrive and get him out, and that he lifted up the flap that prevents the toys from exiting the machine and started throwing the stuffed animals out so the other kids could have them.

Haskin said the birthday party was finishing up when she turned around from talking with another parent to find her youngest son, who she said is a handful, sitting in the machine.

"All I can see is his head and shoulders sticking up from all the stuffed animals, and he's smiling like, 'Look what I did,'" Haskin said.

"He didn't want to get out," said Wilson, who headed up the "rescue" team. "Just shook his head and said, 'No.' He had been sitting there on his butt, enjoying himself and all the attention he was getting. Several people were taking photographs, and he was mugging for the camera."

Wilson would not say that the machines should be banned because of the risk that children could climb inside.

Now, Haskin said her biggest problem was keeping Devinlee from destroying all the media cameras that were taping him.

"All he wants to do is play with the cameras," she said. "Most of the cameramen have been nice. They let him look through the lens. He loves the tripod."

For the ordeal, Devinlee received a Batman toy that his mother thinks he was after all along.

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