ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, December 28, 1996            TAG: 9612300076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: GRIFFITH, IND.

HUNGRY GIFT DOLL ATTACKS ITS OWNER

RELATIVES BATTLED for half an hour to stop a battery-operated toy that chewed a 7-year-old's hair to her scalp.

A battery-operated Cabbage Patch Doll that can chew had to be taken apart piece by piece when it munched a 7-year-old girl's hair up to her scalp and wouldn't let go.

Sarah Stevens' aunt, who owns the hair salon where the incident took place, worked for 30 minutes Thursday with her husband and brother-in-law to remove more than 20 screws, open the battery compartment and pull apart the mouth to free Sarah's blond hair. Sarah was shaken but unhurt. ``I have a little headache,'' she said.

The Cabbage Patch Snack Time Kids Doll is designed to chew automatically when plastic french fries or other items are placed in its mouth. It has no on-off switch.

Sarah's aunt, Kelly Nagy, had brought her niece to the salon. She found the girl leaning over a waiting room chair, crying.

``She must have had it lying by her hair and it must have sucked it down,'' Nagy said.

Glenn Bozarth, spokesman for toy maker Mattel Inc., said the doll is safe and that he knows of no other safety complaints.

Bozarth said it is hard to imagine such a thing happening unless the child stuck her hair into the doll's mouth.

Asked whether she wanted another one of the dolls, Sarah answered with a definite ``Yeah.''

- Associated Press

LENGTH: Short :   42 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP.  Sarah Stevens, 7, waits for relatives to free a 
          Cabbage Patch Snack Time Kid from her hair Thursday in Griffith, 
          Ind. The doll's batteries and mouth had to be removed. color.