NEW YORK – A 3-year-old girl is in hospital after surviving a terrifying fall from the sixth-floor window of a Manhattan apartment complex, while a 2-year-old girl recovers from a fall from a fifth-floor window apartment in Queens on the same day.
Authorities say the 3-year-old fell from the window of a NYCHA building on Sunday morning in West 26th Street at Chelsea. She was seriously injured and was taken to a city hospital.
Felix Maldonado was passing by and saw something fall, but he didn’t know it was a little girl until he ran to help her.
“She landed on grass, she didn’t land on concrete or anything like that,” he said. “There was a lady right next to the minor and they informed me that she was the aunt. I let her know it wasn’t her fault, you know I hugged her, I tried to calm her down.”
It is unclear whether the woman identified as the aunt was caring for the child at the time, but a woman identified as the child’s mother was seen arriving at the building, gasping for air as she got into a police car before going to the hospital.
The window the girl fell from did not appear to have a window guard. After the incident, NYCHA workers could be seen trying to install one, but it was the wrong size.
“Based on an immediate review of our records, window guards were installed on all windows when the family moved into the apartment in January 2023,” a NYCHA spokesperson said.
NYCHA staff visited the apartment last week for unrelated repairs and performed an inspection, which found all window guards were in place, the statement continued. It’s unclear what happened to the guard between last week and Sunday’s fall.
In the Queens case, police say a 2-year-old girl was found lying in a grassy area on Seagirt Boulevard with injuries indicative of a fall. The investigation revealed that he had fallen from a window of a fifth-floor apartment. She was taken to hospital in stable condition. Details about those circumstances were not immediately available.
Both investigations are ongoing, police said.