Little fan, big hair

Leighton and Riley have several different little hand held fans that they like to play with.  On this day, one little fan had a serious run in with Riley's big hair.  Oops.  She squealed in pain.  I rushed to help.  And then paused.  The thing was completely tied up in her hair.  I turned it off and pulled away a lot of the more loosely tangled sections.  Then I started trying to twist it the opposite way in hopes that the rest of the hair would just unwind.

(I hear you all laughing at my optimism)

I dragged Riley to the couch by the window for a better look.  Then to the cupboard for a screw driver.  Then I stopped to answer a phone call or email form Lindsey who was on her way over to drop something off.  Back to the screw driver.  Oh, wait, I think this is when I also paused to quickly take these pictures with my phone!  All the while, Riley was being very patient and calm while trying to follow my directions to move her neck one way or the other.

When Lindsey arrived, I had dismantled (and broken) the $1 fan.  But it didn't release Riley's hair as I had hoped.  It was still twisted around the blade.  I was getting close to cutting it out (with the amount of curly hair she has, you wouldn't have noticed, right?  Right?  And it was a relatively tiny section, right?  Right?  You can tell me yes now because I need to know this is a viable option in the future should we have any more mishaps with her bountiful curls.), but when Lindsey arrived we got it out by just pulling the blade from the front.  Yeah, I didn't try that the first time.  I didn't assume you could just pop it off like that!  These little things should come with instructions for getting them untangled from big hair!