Girl needs rescuing from toy-vending machine

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From the Times Herald Record

Girl needs rescuing from toy-vending machine

July 13, 2007

Middletown – 1:15 p.m. -- The makers of “Toy Soldier” must not have counted on the curiosity and agility of a 2-year-old like Angelia Romero when they designed their toy-vending machine.

The little girl was shopping with her grandmother at National Wholesale Liquidators yesterday afternoon when she crawled inside a trap door near the bottom and found herself stuck in a Plexiglas-sided chute, surrounded by stuffed animals.

Her grandmother, Donna Steinman, says stood a few feet away, fishing in her purse for quarters, when she heard, “Hi, Grandma!” She looked up and saw pint-sized “Li-Li” waving to her from inside the 6-foot-high contraption.

“At first, it was funny,” Steinman recalled.

But then it wasn’t.

Angelia couldn’t get back out the door, which only swung inwards. And soon the little girl was sweating and crying hysterically as store employees and rescue workers tried to free her.

“It was scary,” Steinman said. “I had my child behind glass, and I can’t get to her.”

Firefighters finally got her out almost half an hour later by prying open and shattering one of the machine’s glass sides.

This morning, Steinman and Angelia’s mother, Nicole Romero, were still shaken by the ordeal and eager to share their story to spare other children the same predicament. They had already found a few stories on the Internet confirming that Angelia wasn’t the first.

“What I’m concerned with is some other kid doesn’t get into these same machines,” Steinman said. “That’s supposed to be an ‘out’ only,” she added, referring to the door.

The saga began when she took Angelia and her 9-year-old sister, Samantha Mann, shopping for the sand box Angelia so desperately wanted. Other stores had sold out, so the Middletown family wound up at the bargain store off Dolson Avenue.

Steinman said the three of them were leaving at 4:45 p.m. with the sand box in their cart when they stopped for Angelia to ride a mechanical car near the exit. She said she took her eyes off the little girl for no more than 10 seconds.

The machine Angelia chose to explore is the type where users manipulate a claw to grab a prize – stuffed animals, in this case. Her entrance was the one-way door where winners grab their booty.

The opening measures 12 inches by 13 inches. Angelia is less than 3 feet tall and weighs 25 pounds – just lithe enough to squirm inside.

This morning, the family returned to the store to show a reporter the machine. That prompted a tense exchange with Miguel Herrera, who owns the pizzeria where “Toy Soldier” and other games are kept. His eatery is in the store entrance.

“The machine is not dangerous,” Herrera said from behind the counter. “The problem is you don’t watch the kids.”

Steinman angrily replied that she was watching the children and that the machine was indeed dangerous.

“Toy Soldier,” one side still missing, had been disabled and emptied of toys. Herrera said he has had no other problems with it in more than four years and plans to keep it – with a modification that will make it harder to crawl inside.