Airport CCTV cameras captured the moment an inquisitive toddler clambered aboard a moving baggage carousel and was swept through machines and into the heart of Atlanta International Airport.

The two-year-old boy apparently walked away from his mother without her noticing while she was printing her boarding pass at a ticket machine.

Dressed in striped shorts and an orange t-shirt, the boy is seen walking straight through an unattended ticket counter and directly towards the moving conveyor belt.

Hoisting himself aboard the moving platform and lying on it face down, he is rapidly transported towards the flaps where the conveyor belt exits the room. At this point he appears to momentarily try to save himself, before he is bulldozed through the opening by a large bag.

The now empty conveyor continues moving as a woman’s hand appears in shot, pointing in the direction of the flaps through which the boy vanished.

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A man runs over and hits the emergency stop button and peers through the opening, but it is too late, the child has gone.

The CCTV clip then shows the inside of the baggage handling centre inside the airport. The boy suddenly emerges on a conveyor belt surrounded by luggage which is all heading for a mysterious long cylindrical machine – likely to be an X-ray machine.

Seeing that he is about to be dragged inside the machine, he begins trying to crawl back in the direction he has come from. Another suitcase becomes an obstacle, which he manages to climb over, but his sense of urgency does not appear great enough, and as yet another bag blocks his escape, he is swept into the dark tunnel, feet first.

Another CCTV camera shows him emerge from the other side and begin a transit up a steep incline, and then down a slope into yet another room in which workers finally notice him trapped on the moving conveyor belt.

Some employees stand on their desks ready to help him, but the boy is gently lifted off the conveyor belt by a man who then passes him to a colleague.

The boy was treated for a “severely swollen and bruised” right hand before he was transported to hospital, Atlanta police said.

The child’s mother told police she had only looked away from her son “for one second” and when she looked back he had disappeared.

According to local paper the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the boy’s mother said: “When I tried to go after him, it was at the end of the machine. I couldn’t even catch up.

“I wanted to jump in and try to go get him, but they didn’t allow me. I was just freaking out.”

“I’m thankful he’s alive,” she added. “That’s all that goes through my mind. I’m just grateful he’s here.”

Spirit Airlines confirmed the incident had occurred in a statement on Wednesday.

“An unattended child passed by a section of our ticket counter that was not staffed or open at the time,” the airline told NBC News.