A 3-year-old girl is in the hospital after surviving a terrifying fall from the sixth-floor window of a Manhattan apartment complex, while a 2-year-old is recovering from a fifth-floor window plunge in Queens the same day.
Police say the 3-year-old child went out the window of a NYCHA building Sunday morning off West 26th Street in Chelsea. She was critically injured and taken to a hospital in the city.
Felix Maldonado was walking by and saw something fall — but he didn’t know it was a little girl until he ran over to help.
“She landed on the grass, she didn’t land on any concrete or anything like that," he said. “There was a lady right next to the child and they had informed me that she was the aunt. I let her know it wasn’t her fault, you know I gave her a hug, I tried to calm her down.”
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It’s unclear if the woman identified as the aunt was watching the child at the time, but a woman identified as the girl’s mother was seen arriving at the building, unable to breath as she entered a police car before heading to the hospital.
The window the child fell from did not appear to have a window guard. Following the incident, NYCHA workers could be seen trying to install one but it was the wrong size.
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"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 not clear what happened to the guard between last week and Sunday's fall.
In the Queens case, police said a 2-year-old girl was found lying in a grassy area on Seagirt Boulevard with injuries indicative of a fall. The investigation found she fell from a fifth-story apartment window. She was taken to a hospital in stable condition. No details on those circumstances were immediately available.
Both investigations are ongoing, police said.
