You think bowling alley employees are there just to spray shoes and come running when you start shrieking that a pin is stuck? Well, maybe most of the time, but one worker in Wisconsin added “lifesaver” to his resume after rescuing a toddler who was stuck in the pin resetting mechanism.

A 23-year-old student and employee at a bowling alley in Eau Claire, Wisc. (shoutout to my little bro’s alma mater, what what) was about to leave after finishing up his shift, reports The Leader-Telegram, when he heard people shouting.

A young boy had wandered down a lane to check out the pins and apparently no one saw him. He triggered a laser that sets the reset mechanism in motion, as it would when a ball passes by. A mechanical arm dropped down and pulled the boy into a pit behind the lane, along with downed pins, while a pin setter descended to collect the pins still standing.

The worker sprinted toward the child while bystanders stopped bowling and watched in silence, one bowler said.

“Everyone had stopped bowling,” a witness said. “Then we saw this little guy on his hands and knees near the pin area … then the little kid was dragged into the pit, and we were watching the pin setter come down.”

“Everyone was gasping. This kid was in really serious trouble,” he added.

The employee was able to hit the kill switch to stop the machinery in time to reach the boy and try to coax him out of the pit.

“He was crying and didn’t want to move, but it didn’t look like he’d been hurt,” he explained. “I slid him towards me on his belly a little bit,” he said.

It’s a good thing the employee was slim, he says, as his narrow build helped him work around the machinery and pull the boy free. The boy’s family was grateful, he says, as one would be if their child had almost been swallowed by a pin machine.

“They did say, ‘Thank you. We’re sorry about that,’ ” the worker said. That better have been an effusive thank you, because you did a good thing, young sir. Nay, a great thing.

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Bowling alley worker rescues toddler from pin machinery [The Leader-Telegram]

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