Missing Boy Found Safe ... in Toy Claw Machine

A frantic search for a missing toddler in Lincoln, Neb., ended happily—and hilariously. The 3-year-old boy, who had slipped out of his home while his mother was in the bathroom, was found happily playing with stuffed animals inside the claw machine of the bowling alley across the street. An astonished customer notified employees after spotting the boy in the machine. "I really don't think he noticed any of us outside the machine because he was just picking up stuffed animals and putting them down where they come out of," the establishment's bartender tells KLKN.

The machine's owner was called and he opened the machine so the uninjured boy could get out. He says the boy must have gotten in through the machine's prize hole. "You have to weave your way in and out so he had to work pretty hard to get in there," he explains. "I had heard about this happening in other parts of the country, it's kind of a rarity." The boy was returned home with a stuffed animal from the machine as a souvenir, and police say his mother will not be charged because she was quick to report her son missing, reports the New York Daily News. (More missing child stories.)