Police rescue toddler stuck in Hello Kitty claw machine

Young boy in Brisbane got himself into a predicament on a visit to a shopping centre last weekened

Police rushed to the rescue of a curious three-year-old boy who found himself stuck inside a Hello Kitty claw machine in an Australian shopping centre.

Queensland police posted the video of the young boy, named Ethan, who had found himself in a predicament when visiting a shopping centre in Brisbane on Sunday.

Surrounded by Hello Kitty soft toys, the boy didn’t appear to be as distressed or in any rush to be rescued as his parents and officers devised a plan to get him out of the claw machine.

“Ethan and the Police: 1 Claw Machine: 0,” the police’s caption on X, formerly known as Twitter, read.

“Police were called in to rescue the adventurous Ethan, who had crawled up into a toy machine at a Capalaba shopping centre on Saturday.”

Surrounded by Hello Kitty soft toys, the boy didn’t appear to be as distressed or in any rush to be rescued as his parents and officers devised a plan to get him out of the claw machine (Queensland police)

As officers approach the machine, they can be seen discussing with Ethan’s parents the best way to get him out safely.

One officer can be seen tapping the game’s screen and clarifying whether it was glass, before asking if Ethan can move into the back corner of the machine and cover his eyes.

The father told his son to cover his eyes before a police officer broke one side of the machine’s glass window.

The care-free boy then crawls over to the hole in the glass where he is picked up safely out of the machine.

“You won a prize, which one do you want?” an officer can be heard joking.

The video has wracked up over 32,000 views on social media with many wondering how Ethan found his way into the machine in the first place.

One X user replied: “Well done police!!! Little children are so quick when they are determined to do something. It’s easy in hindsight to say what could have been done but the parents and the officer involved did the best they could in an unexpected situation.”

The video has wracked up over 32,000 views on social media with many wondering how Ethan found his way into the machine in the first place (Queensland police)

Others dubbed the parents as “irresponsible” for letting their child get into the machine.

Ethan’s father, Timothy Hopper, said that his son was playing with the machine before he quickly disappeared out of sight.

“I had zero chance to react to it, it was unbelievable how fast he climbed up there,” Mr Hopper told ABC news.

“I was watching him and then I was talking to my children. He always opens up the flap to be an opportunist, and then within a split second he crawled into the machine and the door closed behind him.”

He added: “He stood up and realised what had happened, he climbed over the perplex glass and was king of the mountain, I couldn’t help but laugh thinking ‘how has this happened?’ because he wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t sad, so it was easy to have a laugh when he was having the time of his life.

“But then reality sunk in — how am I going to get him out.”