Children's toys are meant to be entertaining. But as the list below demonstrates, these fun little objects can also play a crucial role in bridging the gap between life and death.
We present to you the top 10 toys that saved people's lives.
10. Remote Control Toy Truck
Ernie Fessenden had a brother serving in Afghanistan. And, of course, Ernie wanted his brother to return home safe and sound. So he contacted a toy store owner, and together they added a wireless camera and infrared lighting to a remote-controlled toy truck and sent it to Afghanistan.
One day, Ernie's brother, Chris, lent a toy truck to a group of soldiers about to go on patrol. They drove the remote-controlled toy truck ahead, scanning for danger. And it found it. The toy truck struck the wires of explosives hidden on the road, detonating them. The soldiers were unharmed.
9. Inflatable toy turtle
In July 2017, torrential rains lashed the Chinese city of Liuyang, located in Hunan Province. Thirteen people were trapped in their homes as the waters rapidly rose around them. Meanwhile, several quick-thinking police officers ran to a nearby toy store. There, they found a bright green inflatable turtle. Returning to the scene, the police quickly inflated the toy and rescued the people in less than two hours.
Although the police officers' actions were heroic, they themselves were a little embarrassed by the appearance of the rescue craft. "Sorry that our vessel is... too cute. But the most important thing is that everyone is 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 arguing. In the heat of the argument, the 17-year-old grabbed two kitchen knives. But her stepfather had his own weapon—a lightsaber. True, it was a toy, but that wouldn't stop a real Jedi, right?
Witnesses said the man successfully fought off his stepdaughter's attack. May the Force protect them both.
7. Minion
For those unfamiliar, Minions are small yellow animated characters who first appeared in the 2010 animated film Despicable Me. They became so popular that they even got their own animated film, which grossed $1.159 billion at the box office in 2015. And while in the cartoon world, Minions prefer to work for supervillains, in real life they can also do good deeds.
On the night of July 16, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a 5-year-old girl was playing in her bedroom on the third floor of an apartment building. Somehow, she fell out of a window. However, the stuffed Minion she was playing with cushioned her fall and saved her life. She suffered a broken wrist.
Well, at least in the eyes of one lucky little girl, the Minions have become superheroes.
6. Doll
In September 1940, a German bomb was dropped on the Welsh town of Haverfordwest. It struck near the house where two-year-old Dorothy Owen lived.
Her mother discovered that the ceiling of her little daughter's bedroom had collapsed. Frantically clearing away the rubble, she discovered her daughter was still alive. The hard doll head she had been holding onto when the ceiling collapsed had protected the girl's head from the impact.
5. Clicker
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. Some 156,000 men took part in the event, of whom 4,500 were killed and thousands more wounded or missing.
Some American soldiers took with them a toy found inside a box of crackers. It was known as a "clicker" because of the noise it made.
For Captain Sam Gibbons of the 101st Airborne Regiment of the U.S. Army, this tiny children's toy became a friend-or-foe identification signal.
After parachuting in complete darkness, Gibbons landed in a pasture surrounded by German troops. After half an hour of crawling, he made his way to the road and encountered another soldier. Unsure whether he was American or German, Gibbons clicked his clicker.
«"I clicked, and he clicked back twice. Boy, was I glad to see him," the captain later said.
4. Water weapons
On a hot summer day, children have several ways to cool off, and the most fun is shooting water guns. The modern toy industry offers both small and giant models that can be used to drench an opponent. And when children get excited, engaging in wet shootouts with their friends, all the parents caught in the crossfire beg for mercy.
On May 31, 2016, those parental wails must have turned into a chorus of thanksgiving for five children in North Dakota. Amidst a water war raging in the area surrounding their apartment complex, the boys and girls smelled smoke. It led them to an apartment engulfed in flames. Worse, there was a man inside.
Children began shooting water guns in an attempt to extinguish the fire. By the time the fire department arrived, the fire was already smoldering and nearly out.
3. Toy foxes
A constant participant in many tales of cunning and ingenuity, the toy also made the list of toys that saved human lives.
During a visit to Beijing, British politician Geoffrey Clifton-Brown received a gift from an online store—several stuffed foxes. He initially intended to throw them away, but then decided to bring them back as gifts for his family. And, as it turned out, he made the right choice.
After leaving his hotel, Clifton-Brown fell down a well shaft. And it was the very stuffed animals he'd wanted to give up that ended up cushioning his fall.
«"I picked up this huge bag of stuffed foxes, and by pure luck it literally saved my life," Clifton-Brown said in an interview.
2. Driving skills in the Mario Kart video game
While some seek to ban video games, considering them to be almost the main evil for children, others draw vital lessons from them.
One day, 10-year-old Griffin Sanders and his 4-year-old brother were riding as passengers in a car driven by their grandmother. Suddenly, she lost consciousness, and the car swerved into oncoming traffic.
And then Griffin took action.
«"I couldn't get to the brakes because my grandmother was in the way," Sanders later said. "So I just drove the car into the ditch.".
Sanders then turned and looked at the backseat where his younger brother was playing carefree on his iPad, unaware that his older brother may have just saved his life.
The boy could only thank his driving experience gained in Mario Kart for helping him keep his cool in a seemingly hopeless situation.
1. Toy cart
This story began as a family idyll: one day, a father put his one-year-old son and two-year-old daughter on a red plastic toy cart and started pushing them around the house.
But something terrible happened: a woman driving up to them in a car took her eyes off the road for a moment and crashed into the cart.
It's amazing that the brother and sister survived, and it's all because of the little toy they were riding on. Even though it was pulled under the car and dragged 15 meters, the cart held together and protected its little passengers from certain death.