When you come up empty-handed playing the claw machine, you might say a few choice words and bang on the glass.
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The one thing you don't do is crawl inside it.
As the subject of this story, Cooper, is only 2 years old, he can be forgiven for not knowing the unwritten rule about using the claw machine. Yet that didn't stop his mother from being horrified when she saw him actually inside the game.
"I Looked Away for Maybe 15 Seconds"
As the New York Post reports, the incident occurred at the Soccer Dome in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, on Feb. 7. Margaret King, Cooper's mother, was watching her older son play.
"I literally glanced over there. He was pretending to play with the claw machine," she said. "I looked away for maybe 15 seconds."
In that short amount of time, King said she heard a scream. She turned around to find Cooper inside the crane game. While all the adults looked concerned, the toddler wasn't daunted at all.
"If anyone knew my son, Cooper, they would totally understand that he would do something like this," King said. "You know he's laughing, throwing balls everywhere. We were like Cooper, try and go back down, and he was like shaking his head."
King Then Called 911
While Cooper was safe, King said she had no choice but to call 911. Officers arrived within minutes. Cooper stayed inside the machine for around 20 minutes until a vending company worker came with a key to get him out.
In clips of the incident, the toddler is having the time of his life, playing with the toys inside.
The video has since gone viral. Viewers have asked King plenty of questions about the incident. A few even questioned why she didn't use the claw to scoop Cooper out.
"I was going to comment back that I didn't have enough change since he used it all," she said.
While she was scared in the moment, King is now in a place where she can laugh about what happened.
She said, "In today's world, everyone needs someone funny on their TV, and what's not funny about a 2-year-old playing in a claw machine?"
