Delicate wash: naked Aussie trapped in washing machine

HE COULD have been the finest Australian spinner since Shane Warne, but a 20-year-old Aussie man who stripped naked and hid in top-loading washing machine in a bid to surprise his girlfriend, suffered only ignominy and embarrassment.

Police, firefighters and paramedics were summoned to the man's flat in the tiny town of Mooroopna in rural Victoria on Saturday after his girlfriend discovered him stuck firmly in the machine. "He was very well wedged in there and we were concerned for his health and wellbeing," police sergeant Tim Gleeson told the Herald Sun.

The man was so well wedged, in fact, that a specialist search-and-rescue squad had to dismantle the machine and coat the man's body in olive oil to dislodge him. "They greased him up until he was free," Gleeson explained.

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The man's girlfriend told his rescuers that they had been "playing a game" when disaster struck. "He was trying to surprise his missus and became stuck," said Sergeant Gleeson.

"It was just a game gone wrong. It would be fair to say the gentleman was very embarrassed."

The Herald Sun says the man's story has "bizarre parallels" with the plight of an American girl who was freed from a washing machine at the weekend after her family smeared her with peanut butter.