By The Diary
Sep 14, 2024, 01:17 AM EDT
A 10-year-old girl has died of cardiac arrest after surviving a fall from several stories in her Bronx apartment building, New York police said.
The tragedy began around 5 p.m. Thursday at an apartment complex at Southern Blvd. and E. 182nd St. The girl apparently fell for unknown reasons from her family’s 4th-floor apartment or the roof of the building and landed on the rubber surface of the patio, she said. ABC News.
The girl’s mother told police that her sister went to look for her and found her lying in the courtyard of the building. They went down to check and she was alive and had no visible injuries apart from a swollen ankle. She even jumped over a fence to join her family while injured.
But later, around 7:45 p.m., the family noticed the girl was having increasing trouble breathing. They decided to take her to St. Barnabas Hospital, where she died of cardiac arrest. Her name was not released.
The family has no prior record with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), but authorities are investigating what may have caused the fall.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said neighbor Antoinette Talamone. “This could have been prevented … and I’m sad, I’m very disappointed.”
In July, a 3-year-old boy fell five stories into the void and survived in Brooklyn (NYC), during an apparent accident while playing with a window air conditioner. In another similar case, in February a 7-year-old boy miraculously survived after falling three stories from a residential building in East Harlem, Manhattan (NYC). But these emergencies almost never have a happy ending. In September, a 7-year-old boy tragically fell from the balcony of an apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In July 2023, a four-year-old boy died after falling out of a window in his 4th-floor home in a building in Brooklyn.
As a precaution, the authorities remind:
-Check window guards carefully periodically. Screens or covers are not safe substitutes.
-Never place a bed, chair or other object that children can climb on in front of a window.
-Keep children away from balconies and terraces unless they are being closely supervised by an adult by closing the doors to those areas.
-Never allow children to play near elevator shafts or on fire escapes, balconies, terraces or roofs. Also, do not allow them to be unsupervised in the hallways of buildings with unguarded windows.
-Call 311 to report unprotected hallway windows.
If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being abused, especially if you are a minor or an elderly person:
Seek help
- Call 911, 988 or (800)-942-6906.
- Text “WELL” to 65173.
- Check information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/ and www.988lineadevida.org