A Florida couple is sounding the alarm after their young son crawled into a cooler and locked himself inside.
Rob Wanes told 7 News Miami that the family had just returned home after a day out on the water. They left their cooler out to dry.
The family’s surveillance video system shows how their five-year-old son Nicholas stepped into the cooler and, for a few minutes, began to play with the lid cracked open.
But then, the child’s fingers push out a small stand, which causes the lid to suddenly drop and lock -- trapping little Nicolas inside.
His mother, Maria Wanes, told 7 News Miami how she began to hear a “muffled scream.” The couple then “came running out and … couldn't tell where the scream was coming from.”
Her husband said “it was an awful scream, as if a child had fallen and gotten really hurt.” He quickly followed the noise to the cooler and pried it open.
"He was right here in the cooler curled up on his back and he was screaming, crying,” he said. “We yanked him out."
The child later told 7 News Miami how scared he was when he realized the family’s 68-litre cooler had locked him in.
Nicholas felt he had “got locked in there forever.” But fortunately for him, he was only locked in for a few seconds. His mother said this was a parent’s worst nightmare.
"Every thought goes through your mind ... what if I didn’t hear him? What if I was out front? What if I was upstairs? What if I was in the shower?” she said. “I mean, that's why we want to get this [story]out there."
The father has already removed the locking device off the cooler and the Wanes have reached out to the manufacturer and the store where they purchased it.
The family is hoping coolers like theirs will eventually be designed to be child-proof.
