KEY POINTS
- They found the injured child laying on a third-floor balcony
- The child was rushed to Harlem Hospital where he was pronounced dead
- Window guards are legally required in New York City buildings
New York City -- A three-year-old toddler fell from the 29th floor of an apartment building on Saturday morning in Harlem, and succumbed to injuries, authorities confirmed.
Police responded to a 911 call at 11:09 a.m. and found the injured child laying on a third-floor balcony. The child was rushed to Harlem Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Neighbors told NYPD that they heard a loud noise when the toddler fell and landed on the third-floor scaffolding of the Taino Towers apartment complex on Third Avenue between East 122nd and 123rd Streets at 11:10 a.m. New York Post reported.
The incident stirred panic and everyone was trying to get to the scaffold to help the toddler. The paramedics reached the site of the incident and brought the toddler down with a towel on his face.
“It sounded like something really heavy. It sounded like construction,” Tangerine Castro, who lives on the 23rd floor of the apartment said, “We just started looking and everybody started coming out of their building. Everybody that was upstairs that could see down, saw the little boy with the yellow shirt. He was flat in the scaffolding." The child’s mother, who was outside at the time, began to yell, said witnesses.
The child’s father reportedly "ran downstairs crying" to climb onto the scaffolding but couldn’t get there.
Officials told the Associated Press that they are investigating the circumstances of the incident.
Richard Linares witnessed the toddler’s fall, New York Daily News reported. He was outside the apartment complex when the toddler fell. “We heard a big bang,” he said, “My boy that was here ran to the front. He ran up the scaffold to find the baby. The baby was still crying and breathing when he got there.”
Window guards are legally required in New York City for buildings with three or more units if a child aged 10 or younger resides there or if a renter or resident demands them. The preliminary investigation has not identified whether window guards were fitted in the apartment.
Above, police tape is stretched around the outside of the home of 57-year-old Darnell Hudson Donerson, the mother of Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, in Chicago, Illinois, Oct 25, 2008. Photo: Getty Images/Scott Olson
