Children's toys are for fun. But, as the list below shows, these fun little objects can also play a connecting role between life and death.
We present you the top 10 toys that saved the lives of people.
10. Remote control toy truck
Ernie Fessenden had a brother who served in Afghanistan. And, of course, Ernie wanted his brother to return home safe and sound. So he contacted the owner of a toy store, together they added a wireless camera and infrared lighting to a remote-controlled toy truck and sent him to Afghanistan.
Ernie's brother, Chris, once lent a toy truck to a group of soldiers who were about to go on patrol. They steered the remote-controlled toy truck forward in search of danger. And he found her. The toy truck hit the wires of an explosive disguised on the road, and it detonated. The soldiers were not injured.
9. Inflatable toy turtle
In July 2017, heavy rains hit the Chinese city of Liuyang, located in Hunan Province. And 13 people were trapped in their homes when water quickly rose around them. At this time, several quickly thinking police officers ran to the nearest toy store. There they found a bright green inflatable tortoise. Returning to the scene, the police quickly inflated the toy and saved people in less than 2 hours.
Although the actions of the police were heroic, they themselves were a bit embarrassed by the sight of the rescue tool. “Sorry for our ship ... too sweet. But, most importantly, all people are safe, ”they said.
8. Toy lightsaber
Attention Star Wars fans! Apparently, Luke Skywalker is alive and living in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
According to eyewitnesses, on the night of Thursday, March 17, 2017, the stepdaughter and her stepfather began to quarrel. In the heat of a quarrel, a 17-year-old girl grabbed two kitchen knives. But her stepfather had his own weapon - a lightsaber. True, a toy, but a real Jedi is not a hindrance, right?
Witnesses said the man successfully repelled the stepdaughter's attack. May the Force keep them both.
7. Mignon
For those who don’t know, minions are small yellow animated characters that first appeared in public in the 2010 cartoon Despicable Me. They became so popular that they received their own cartoon, which in 2015 raised 1.159 billion dollars at the box office. And although in the cartoon world Minions prefer to work for supervillains, in life they can do good deeds.
On the night of July 16, 2015 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a 5-year-old girl played in her bedroom, located on the third floor of a residential building. And somehow she fell out of the window. However, the plush minion that the baby was playing softened her fall and saved her life. She escaped with a fracture of the hand.
Well, at least in the eyes of one happy little girl, the minions became superheroes.
6. Doll
In September 1940, a German bomb was dropped on the Welsh city of Haverfordwest. She got to a place near the house where 2-year-old Dorothy Owen lived.
Her mother discovered that the ceiling of her little daughter’s bedroom had collapsed. Frantically raking the blockage, she discovered that her daughter was still alive. The doll’s solid head, which she held on to when the ceiling collapsed, protected the girl’s head from being hit.
5. Clicker
On Day D, June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of French Normandy. This event was attended by 156,000 people, 4,500 of whom were killed and thousands more injured or missing.
Some American soldiers brought along a toy that could be found inside a box of crackers. She was known as a “clicker” because of the noise being made.
For Captain Sam Gibbons of the 101st Airborne Regiment of the US Army, this tiny children's toy became an identification signal “friend or foe”.
Parachuting in complete darkness, Gibbons landed on a pasture surrounded by German troops. After half an hour of advancement, he crawled through the road and met another soldier there. Not knowing if he was an American or a German soldier, Gibbons clicked on his clicker.
“I clicked, and he answered with two clicks. Guys, how glad I was to see him, ”the captain later said.
4. Water weapons
On a hot summer day, a child has several ways to cool, and the most fun of them is firing weapons that shoot water. The modern toy industry offers both small and giant models, from which you can dice the opponent from head to toe. And when the children fall into a rage, participating in wet skirmishes with their friends, all the parents caught in the crossfire pray for mercy.
On May 31, 2016, these parental screams must have turned into a appreciative choir for five children from North Dakota. At the height of the general water war that was going on in the territory near their housing estate, boys and girls smelled smoke. He led them to an apartment in fire. Worse, there was a man inside.
Children started firing water guns, trying to put out the fire. By the time the fire department arrived at the scene, the fire was already smoldering and almost extinguished.
3. Toy foxes
The constant participant in many tales about cunning and ingenuity is also included in the list of toys that saved human lives.
During a visit to Beijing, British politician Jeffrey Clifton-Brown received a gift from an online store - several soft toy foxes. At first he intended to throw them away, but then decided to bring a gift to his family. And, as it turned out, he made the right choice.
Leaving the hotel, Clifton Brown fell into the well shaft. And it was those soft toys that he wanted to abandon that ultimately softened his fall.
“I took this huge bag with soft foxes, and by a lucky chance it literally saved my life,” Clifton Brown said in an interview.
While some seek to ban video games, considering them to be almost the main evil for children, others learn vital lessons from them.
Once, 10-year-old Griffin Sanders and his 4-year-old brother were driving passengers in a car driven by their grandmother. Suddenly she lost consciousness, and the car turned into a lane of oncoming traffic.
And then Griffin began to act.
“I couldn’t get to the brakes because my grandmother was on the way,” Sanders later said. "Then I just took it and drove the car into the ditch."
Then Sanders turned and looked in the backseat, where his younger brother was carelessly playing on the iPad, not knowing that the older brother might have just saved his life.
The boy could only thank his driving experience gained in Mario Kart, which helped to maintain calm in a seemingly hopeless situation.
1. Toy trolley
This story began as a family idyll: once dad put his one-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter on a red plastic toy trolley and began to ride near the house.
But a terrible thing happened: a woman driving up to them in a car took her eyes off the road for an instant, and crashed into a cart.
It's amazing that the brother and sister survived, and all because of the little toy they rode on. Despite the fact that it was pulled under a car and stretched for 15 meters, the trolley did not fall apart and protected its young passengers from certain death.
