Alabama teen rescued by fire department after getting stuck inside a Barney costume

Firefighters had to rescue a distraught teenager trapped inside a purple dinosaur head after a prank went horribly wrong.

Fifteen-year-old Darby Risner of Trussville, Alabama, was with a group of friends at a church event when she stumbled upon an over-sized plush Barney the Dinosaur head.

The church’s pastor had reportedly bought the unusual piece of headwear years earlier, and for a laugh the teenager thought she would try it on to surprise her friends.

As AL.com reports, when Risner sat down to wait for her group of friends to return the costume head accidentally fell down past her shoulders, trapping her inside.

Finding Risner stuck inside the head of a purple tyrannosaurus rex was certainly amusing at first, but soon the teens realized the head wouldn’t budge.

They even tried slathering Risner’s arms in Vaseline, in an attempt to loosen Barney’s death grip, to no avail.

“It gave her short little Barney arms since it was nearly at her elbows,“ said the teen’s mother Audrey Shannon. "It was hilarious. She couldn’t see, so they had to guide her.”

Although everyone else thought it was funny at the time, for Risner things were starting looking pretty grim as she began feeling sick to her stomach.

“The head was closing in on me,” Risner said. “It was like a stuck-in-a-small-place-and-can’t-get-out-panicking.”

That’s when it became time to call in the big guns. Risner was packed inside a minivan, complete with oversized purple dino head in tow, and driven down to the Trussville Fire Department for a much needed rescue.

Firefighters described trying to get a grip on the Vaseline covered teenager as being similar to “trying to wrestle a greased pig,” but eventually some cuts to the back of the head allowed for the costume to finally be removed.

According to Trussville Fire Lt. Vince Bruno, this was one unusual rescue he and his crew members won’t soon forget.

“When they walked in, you couldn’t help but start laughing,” Bruno told AL.com. “We tried to be professional, and she was a little distraught, but we had to giggle about it.”

All images via Darby Risner