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Toddler gets stuck in vending
machine
Wisconsin -
Three-year-old Robert Moore went fishing for a stuffed replica
of Sponge Bob and ended up trapped in a vending machine. The toddler's
adventure began with a Saturday evening shopping trip with his
grandmother, Fredricka Bierdemann, and three siblings.
Bierdemann
ended the trip by giving each child a dollar and telling them to have
fun in a retailer's game room.
A stuffed Sponge Bob in a vending
machine's bin caught Robert's eye. He tried without success to fish it
out with a plastic crane.
"I told him I could get it for him,"
his grandmother said. "He's a character. He said, 'Oh no, I can get
it.'"
When she turned her back to get
another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed
through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal
cube.
"I turned around and looked for him,
and he said, 'Oma, I'm in here," Bierdemann said. "I thought I would
have a heart attack."
Store employees couldn't find a key
to the machine, so Robert waited while the Antigo Fire Department was
called.
"He was having a ball in there,
hugging all the stuffed animals," Bierdemann said. "He was so
good-natured, but I was shaking like a leaf."
Firefighters broke one lock but then
spotted two latches inside the plastic cube. They passed a screwdriver
to Robert.
"He stacked up all the stuffed
animals and used that screwdriver to open the latch," his grandmother
said. "You should have seen him go."
Eventually, Robert freed himself. But
his mother, Marie Moore, and grandmother said they were lucky that he
remained calm when another child might not have. He went home safe —
but without a stuffed Sponge Bob. -- The
Associated Press
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