A three year-old Norwegian boy managed to start the family car and then accidentally ran over and trapped his older sister, police said on Wednesday.
The girl suffered broken bones but was not severely injured, a hospital said.
According to the police, the boy, whose name was withheld, apparently found the car key and drove the car forward outside their home on the island of Hitra on Tuesday evening.
The car moved about 10 metres and knocked down a swing set where the five year-old girl was playing and trapped her under the car.
”The boy went into the house, found the keys, picked out the right one, put it in the ignition, and turned it,” said Arild Sollid, of the sheriff’s office on Hitra, an island off the western Norway coast.
He said the car, a Ford Mondeo, was in gear when the boy turned the key, either starting the engine or bumping it forward with the starter motor.
Sollid said a slight incline and indentation in the ground saved the girl from severe injury by keeping the full weight of the car off her. Neighbours saw what happened, jacked up the car and got the girl out.
”She had a guardian angel,” he said.
The girl was taken to St. Olav’s Hospital in the central Norwegian city of Trondheim and was treated for broken bones, bruises and scrapes. In a news release, the hospital said the injuries were relatively minor, and that she was in stable condition. — Sapa-AP