A five-year-old boy died after getting caught in the mechanism of a revolving restaurant which is one of Atlanta’s most popular tourist attractions.

The child was having lunch with his family at the Sun Dial restaurant, which is on the 72nd storey of the Westin Peachtree Plaza skyscraper.

Firefighters were called to the restaurant on Friday afternoon when the boy got his head stuck in a five-inch gap between the stationary floor and the restaurant’s rotating wall.

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Rescuers took 30 minutes to free the child from the gap, by which point he had sustained serious head injuries.

The boy, who was visiting the city with family from North Carolina, was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died.

“The child was in the restaurant having lunch with his family and doing what small children do,” said a spokesperson for Atlanta Police Department.

“We simply think he lost sight of his parents and panicked and found himself in that situation.”

“A small child doesn’t know what to do in those moments, and it crushed his small body.”

The restaurant will remain closed for the rest of the Easter weekend.

The manager of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel said in a statement that he would make every effort to assist the police in their investigation.

“Words cannot express the depths of our sorrow,” the statement said. “Our thoughts remain with the family.”