Sticky fingers got boy in a jam

IT started out as child's play but ended up like an episode of Fireman Sam when one Ipswich youngster's inquisitive fingers got him into a bit of a fix.

Five-year-old James Vessey-Miller was upstairs in a bedroom at his Henslow Road home when a game he was playing went a little wrong.

He was trying to put something through the lock of a low level filing cabinet and in an effort to pull it out the other side stuck his finger round the back of the lock. Rather than succeed in his game, however, James discovered his finger was trapped.

After failed efforts by his dad, David, to release the finger they were left with little choice but to call the fire brigade.

James' mum Kirsti, had been at work at the Lattice Barn pub, in Woodbridge Road, when the drama began but ran home as soon as she heard the news.

"David phoned and I told him to stick something cold on the finger and to try putting oil on it as well.

"James wriggled his finger but it wasn't going to move. So we called the fire brigade."

A crew from Colchester Road arrived at the family's home at 7.35pm and within 15 minutes James' finger was free and unscathed.

He had not been very excited about seeing the firefighters coming into rescue him although his two-year-old sister Rebecca had been shouting: "There's a 'nee naa'."

However, James did vow not to play with the filing cabinet again.

"He has said he's never going to go near it again and he's never going near the bedroom again," Mrs Vessey-Miller said.

This morning James was none the worse for wear for the drama centred around him yesterday but was looking forward to handing out stickers given to him by the firefighters to his friends at Rosehill Primary School.

Mrs Vessey-Miller, whose other son, 14-month-old Nicholas slept through yesterday's event, said: "The fire brigade were very good to keep him calm. They took him downstairs and sat him in the engine.

"And they gave him loads of stickers. He's going to take them to school to prove what happened."