SpongeBob love gets toddler stuck in machine

ANTIGO, Wis. – The stuffed SpongeBob in a vending machine caught the 3-year-old eye of Robert Moore when he was out on a shopping trip with his grandmother, so the little boy tried to fish it out with a plastic crane.

“I told him I could get it for him,” his grandmother, Fredricka Bierdemann, said. “He’s a character. He said, ‘Oh no, I can get it.’ “

When she turned her back to get another dollar for a second try, Robert took off his coat and squeezed through an opening in the machine. He landed in the stuffed animal cube.

“I turned around and looked for him, and he said, ‘Oma, I’m in here,’ ” Bierdemann said. “I thought I would have a heart attack.”

Store employees couldn’t find a key to the machine Saturday, so Robert waited while the Antigo Fire Department was called.

“He was having a ball in there, hugging all the stuffed animals,” Bierdemann said. “He was so good-natured, but I was shaking like a leaf.”

Firefighters broke one lock but then spotted two latches inside the plastic cube. They passed a screwdriver to Robert.

“He stacked up all the stuffed animals and used that screwdriver to open the latch,” his grandmother said. “You should have seen him go.”

Robert eventually freed himself. His mother, Marie Moore, and grandmother said they were lucky he remained calm when another child might not have. He went home safe – but without a stuffed SpongeBob.