7:00pm Monday 18th January 2010
By James Morton
A RELIEVED mum has praised the firefighters who freed her screaming toddler’s leg from the mechanism of a reclining sofa.
Adventurous George Large, two, decided to use the sofa at the family’s Jubilee Road house in Poole as a climbing frame on Thursday afternoon.
But his tiny leg got firmly wedged when it slipped down the gap in the footrest.
With George wailing for help, frantic mum Lucie called 999.
A crew from Westbourne was at the Parkstone home in less than five minutes.
They managed to free George’s leg using a crowbar, and with a bit of help from Trauma Ted to help calm the little lad.
“They were absolutely fantastic and I am so grateful,” said Lucie, who was briefly on the phone when George went climbing.
“It was really distressing and very frightening, but they were so quick.
“I tried to use washing-up liquid to get his leg out but George was absolutely hysterical.
“His face went purple because he was screaming so much.
“The position his leg was in, I thought it might have broken.”
George suffered a nasty bruise to his leg, as well as to his pride, but thankfully was otherwise unscathed.
Lucie is now urging other parents to be wary of what their toddlers are up to if they have similar furniture in the house.
“I want to warn other people about those footrests,” she said.
“It is quite a wide gap but there was no way I could have got George’s leg out. I can’t believe how much panic it caused.”
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