It's the store's fault for making you want it so bad

MINNEAPOLIS Mar 28, 2006 (AP)— Devin Haskin isn't the first little boy to find the inside of a toy machine too enticing to resist. When the 3-year-old Austin, Minn., boy crawled through the discharge chute of a Toy Chest claw machine at a Godfather's Pizza in his hometown, he ended up on the other side of the glass surrounded by stuffed animals.

Rescuers had to pry the door open to get Devin out, though the boy was in no hurry to leave.

"When we got it open, he didn't want to come out," Fire Chief Dan Wilson said Tuesday. "One of my firefighters had to reach inside and get him. He was happy in there."

Two years ago, a boy crawled inside a toy machine at a Piggly Wiggly in Sheboygan, Wis., and was rescued with the help of a locksmith. Last year, a toddler climbed into a toy machine at a Wal-Mart in Elkhart, Ind. Workers used tools to free the boy.

Ron Morocco, chief executive of Rock Management & Associates, a Spirit Lake, Iowa, company that owns the Godfather's restaurant in Austin, said the machine would be removed until the company talked to the manufacturer.

"We're very happy the young boy wasn't hurt," he said.

An official with Smart Industries Corp., a Des Moines company that makes the toy machine Devin crawled into, didn't immediately return a phone message Tuesday.

To use the toy machine, a player tries to grasp stuffed animals and other toys behind the glass by manipulating overhead claws.

Devin's mother, Heidi Haskin, declined to be interviewed Tuesday.

Wilson said there was a lot of activity at Godfather's on Sunday when the boy got inside the machine. He estimated that 75 to 100 people were in the restaurant when rescuers arrived and that three birthday parties were taking place. But there was plenty of air in the machine and people were taking pictures of Devin.

He said the gap Devin squeezed through was about 7 inches by 9 inches.


Gregg Aamot can be reached at gaamot(at)ap.org