If you’ve had the opportunity to raise a child, you’d probably know just how mischievous little kids can get. What we see as harmless, unassuming objects in our everyday lives, maybe potentially be dangerous for them.
Just three months after a five-year-old boy got his head stuck in a plastic water pipe after using it as a helmet, another boy of the same age – and coincidentally from the same province in China – went through the same experience on Tuesday (June 7).
Left to his own devices while his parents were tending to customers at their shop in Zhejiang province, a five-year-old boy managed to get his hands on an L-shaped pipe.
Reuters, Sina Weibo
A similar incident occurred in Zhejiang in March this year.
Another five-year-old boy had used a pipe as a helmet while at a wedding feast with his family – much like a superhero. After a successful first attempt, the boy then tried to wear the helmet again, only this time, his head became stuck inside the pipe.
The distraught parents took the boy to a fire station where five firemen had to cut the pipe with pliers, scissors and an electric grinder. By then, the boy’s jaw had also started to swell.
Just last week, a man in Fujian similarly got his head stuck – this time, in a washing machine.
The South China Morning Post reported that he was trying to perform a check on the drying drum as he suspected there had been something stuck in it.
However, he made the mistake of examining the machine while it had still been switched on.
Local firefighters were called after the man’s flatmate unsuccessfully tried to rescue him. It took the firefighters another 40 minutes to free the man, as it involved the careful dismantling of the washing machine.
The man escaped with minor scratches.
prabukm@sph.com.sg
