Boy, 10, taken to hospital after getting hand caught in 'mantrap' at Torquay Museum

The object would have been used by landowners to stop trespassers

Torquay Museum, where a boy was injured by a man trap (Jaggery/Creative Commons)

A schoolboy has been taken to hospital after he was injured by an antique metal trap at a museum, which was used to keep trespassers off farmland.

The South Western Ambulance Service were called to Torquay Museum at around 3:30pm on Thursday afternoon, after a 10-year-old boy got his hand caught in a mantrap.

Firefighters also attended the scene, where two fire trucks arrived at around 3:30pm to free the child from the device, believed to be hundreds of years old.

The young boy was taken to Torbay Hospital, after suffering cuts and bruises on his hand.

Torbay Council told the Torquay Herald Express that it’s aware of the incident.

The spring-activated devices were used by landowners to keep poachers and trespassers off their land until the nineteenth century, when they were banned.

In 2011, a six-year-old girl was flown to hospital by air ambulance after she hit her head on an iron maritime compass at the Sailors’ Reading Room in Southwold, The Lowestoft Journal reported at the time.