Everybody's Getting Stuck in a Claw Machine These Days

Christina Drill
October 23, 2014

Gawker has recently reported on a trend (coincidence) that has been sweeping (happened a few times this year) across the nation-- kids getting stuck in arcade claw machines.

The most recent of the claw-climbers is eighteen-month old Colin Lambert from Tennessee, who crawled into a claw machine while at the laundromat with his grandmother. Colin's grandma, Diane O'Neill, explained she had looked away for a moment to check a text message. When she looked back around, her grandson was sitting inside of the claw machine, playing with the toys inside.

“All I could see was his feet, he had already called in. I grabbed his feet and he kicked my hand and he got in climbed up and over glass partition and sat down in the toys," O'Neill told WVLT, the Knoxville area's local newscast. Luckily, Colin was saved when a firefighter arrived on the scene to hoist him up out of the claw machine and back into the arms of his loving grandmother.

A similar incident happened at a Walmart in Wisconsin a few years ago, when a nine year old boy crawled through a one-foot-by-one-foot-hole in the machine and got real cozy inside of it. After his parents tried to coax him out without success, another brave firefighter came to the rescue. The nine year old refused to leave the claw machine unless he was allowed to take two of the toys home with him. There is footage available of the child walking away from the incident with his hands in his pockets with a t-shirt that says "'NUFF SAID."

Here are some more instances of children climbing into claw machines and making it out alright. The question remains: has an adult ever done this successfully? Is this maybe the key to achieving inner happiness?