Neighbor catches boy (2) who falls down from fifth floors

A Chinese boy (2) survived a fall of several floors last Thursday. An attentive neighbor caught the child before he hits the ground.

Images of the incident show how the child – with one sandal on – tries to climb from and past an air-conditioner attached to the wall of an apartment building. The building is located in Huai An, a city in eastern China. Allegedly, the little guy had locked himself in the house before, while his grandmother was outside, he panicked and climbed out.

At one point, the boy manages to hold on to the plateau on which the air conditioning is located for a few seconds. Then it becomes too heavy for him, and he falls. In the air, the toddler revolves several times, partly hitting some sort of glass or plastic shelter before being plucked from the air by a man.

The local authorities shared the images on the Chinese social networking site Weibo. Li Dehai is the heroic neighbor who caught the boy standing on a chair. Other residents had already put soft blankets on the roof so that the boy might fall a bit softer if neighbor Li could not catch him.

“The baby was scared, and other neighbors called for help after seeing him,” says the neighbor. He then called the little one to sit still. Meanwhile, he called the police. But suddenly the boy fell. “It all happened so fast. I thought of nothing else and tried to save him.” Li stood on a chair when he caught the child and was left with a battered arm.

The child was then taken to a hospital but got off without injuries.