NEW YORK — A 3-year-old boy died after falling from a 29th-floor balcony of a New York City apartment building Saturday morning, police said, a preliminary investigation shows.
Officers found the injured toddler lying on scaffolding on the 3rd floor after receiving a 911 call at 11:09 a.m. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“We believe the child got out through a window, but exactly how that happened is under investigation at this time,” a police spokesman told The Associated Press. The apartment is located in the Taino Towers residential complex in Harlem.
New York law requires owners of buildings with three or more apartments to install window guards if a child age 10 or younger lives there or if a tenant or resident requests them. It is unclear if window guards were installed in this particular apartment.
The spokesman said the child’s death was under “active investigation” and police were speaking to two people who were in the flat when the boy fell.
Nydia Cordero, who lives on the 34th floor of the building, told the New York Post that she suddenly heard what she thought was the child’s mother screaming.
“And I looked,” she said, “and the baby was in the scaffold.”
Richard Linares told the New York Daily News that he was outside the apartment complex when the toddler fell.
“We heard a big bang,” he said. “My boy who was here ran out front. He runs up the scaffolding to find the baby. The baby was still crying and breathing when he got there.”
He later added: “By the time the paramedics took him down, they had a towel over his face.”
Tangeline Castro, a neighbor, described to the Daily News a frantic scene as police and residents tried to reach the child.
“Everybody that was out there was running, climbing,” she said. “Every man you saw was trying to get to the scaffolding. It was a whole bunch of emotions.”
Add Comment