Watch | Three-Yr-Old Gets Stuck Inside Hello Kitty Claw Machine, Cops Rush to Rescue Adventurous Toddler

A three-year-old child from Australia was rescued from the grips of a claw machine by the police at a shopping centre in Queensland. The child, named Ethan, crawled up the prize dispenser to grab a Hello Kitty soft toy.

Police in Queensland also posted the video of the incident where Ethan appears, surrounded by a mountain of Hello Kitty plushies, unfazed by and unaware of the situation he is in, and in no rush to be rescued, as they tried to find a way to bring him out.

However, Ethan followed police instructions carefully, crawled over the toys to get out of the way and kept his eyes covered as cops shattered the glass and freed him.

“You won a prize, which one do you want?” the cops said to the brave child after they safely returned him to his family. His father told reporters that he could not believe how quickly his son got inside the claw machine after he turned his back for a “split second” while out grocery shopping.

“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,” his father, Timothy Hopper, was quoted as saying by the Guardian.

The father said that his child had “the time of his life” inside the machine where he was stuck for about 10-15 minutes. “I’ve got a bit of negative feedback over social media [but] kids are going to be kids, they can move in the blink of an eye,” he further added.

Hopper also called the claw machine company at the time who were confused with what was going on and initially felt that Hopper called them because his money was stuck inside. “The only thing stuck in the machine is my child, I would love to have him back,” he said.

Stuart Power, the police officer, who responded to the car said he never saw such an incident in his 11-year policing career. “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. Kids are kids. My boy’s four and I’m surprised he hasn’t done similar,” the police officer was quoted as saying.

A spokesperson for the Retail First Group, who owned the claw machines, said this is the first time such an incident occurred at one of their 21 shopping centres in south-east Queensland. “We are in discussions with the vendor of the claw machines just to look at measures that we can put in place to avoid this happening in the future,” the spokesperson said.