MILWAUKEE -- A 7-year-old boy had to be rescued with the help of a locksmith Sunday after crawling into a Sheboygan, Wis., supermarket's stuffed animal game machine while his father talked on the telephone.

Shift Cmdr. Mark Zittel of the Sheboygan Fire Department said the boy was sitting in the glass enclosure with the stuffed animals when rescuers arrived.

He said Timmy Novotny somehow crawled through about an 8-by-11-inch opening to get into the machine. The stuffed animals are prizes that can be hooked with a cranelike device.

"He was just relaxed. He wasn't upset. He wasn't crying. It didn't seem like he was upset at all," said Murray Patz, who took pictures of the incident.

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The Boy Who Wanted A Toy

Zittel said the boy's father was 3 feet away at a pay phone, and when he turned around the child was in the machine.

He said the boy stayed calm as firefighters moved the machine to the back of the Piggly Wiggly store and got a locksmith to open the main loading door. The process took about an hour.

The boy was not injured, but rescuers haven't figured out how the boy was able to crawl into the game or why no one in the store's busy lobby spotted him and stopped him before he got inside.

Firefighters said the boy and father left Piggly Wiggly without telling them how the boy got trapped in the toy machine.

"We'd like to see how he got through this opening that is basically the size of a paper -- 8 by 11," Zittel said.

"I just, like, wanted to go in there. I thought I could slip back out, but I couldn't," Timmy said.

Timmy saw a toy he liked and went for it.

"I turned around and he was halfway in. His feet were sticking out," Timmy's father, Frank Novotny, said.

When asked if he was scared, Timmy answered, "Not at first."

"The locksmith came and in no time at all he was able to drill out the lock and entire front door of the machine opened and the young lad came right outside," Zittel said. "I've never in my 29 years seen anything like this."

If you're wondering how a boy his mom now calls "little Houdini" made it inside, get in line.

No one saw him do it. Timmy said he just wiggled his way up the shoot and through the hole.

He said he will never try to do that again.

The Piggly Wiggly has since removed the machine.

Timmy said he doesn't remember what toy he wanted to get and, much to his dismay, he walked away empty-handed.

Photos courtesy The Sheboygan Press.