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Fire crews have rescued a two-year-old Palmerston boy who became trapped after crawling inside a ‘skill-tester’ machine at a shopping centre.
While the boy successfully gained access to hundreds of toys, it came at the cost of losing access to the rest of the world.
The fact that a young boy became trapped in the skill-tester represents a huge setback for the whole concept of a Basic Skills Test.
Rescuers repeatedly tried to free the boy by inserting a dollar and trying to line up the claws with the child’s head. “It would fall on him but then slip off at the last moment,” one fireman told The Daily Grind, “It was agony. The kid didn’t seem to like it much either.”
Rescuers abandoned this plan when they ran out of money.
The Northern Territory News reports that one of the firies gave the boy a plush toy from the machine after the rescue. The boy was then arrested and gaoled for receiving stolen property.
The incident marks the first time in Territory history a child has been eaten by anything except a croc.
Although the boy’s parents were reunited with their child, the family’s dignity is understood to remain trapped somewhere inside the machine.
