A toddler in the United Kingdom has become an internet celebrity after a photo of him grinning at firefighters rescuing him from a locked car went viral.
Fourteen-month-old Brandon Green locked himself in his mother's car Friday while she was unloading groceries into the trunk, where she accidentally left her keys before shutting it, Metro reported. The incident occurred in the town of Bude in Cornwall, England.
"He'd been in the little child seat of the shopping trolley, but it didn't have any straps, so he kept trying to stand up while I was shopping," Kirsty Green, 27, said. "I decided to put him in the back of the car while I was unloading the shopping so he didn't keep trying to stand up in the trolley."
Staff at the supermarket called for help, which arrived in the form of firefighters from the Bude Community Fire Station. One firefighter entertained the grinning Brandon through the windshield while others worked to get the door open.
The firefighters ended up smashing the car’s rear window after the boy put a coin in his mouth.
"That's when I started to panic, because I thought, 'Oh, God, what if he chokes on it,'" Green told Metro.
Moments after smashing the window, firefighters returned Brandon to her, unharmed, the newspaper reported.
Green posted the photo of Brandon in the car, clutching the steering wheel, to the fire station's Facebook page after the ordeal.
"Thank you to the amazing guys who rescued my cheeky monkey after locking himself in the car today at Bude Lidl," Green wrote. "He was clearly traumatised by the whole ordeal."
The photo took off from there. The fire department on Monday expressed surprise at how far the image had gone.
"We're all absolutely overwhelmed at how far this picture has travelled ... with local and national press, international press, and even sightings on television," the page read. "Not to mention a comment spotted from Brisbane, Australia! Always a pleasure to get Bude on the map!"
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