HIALEAH, FLA. (WSVN) - A 1-year-old boy is recovering in the hospital after, police said, he fell from the fourth floor balcony of a Hialeah apartment complex, Tuesday afternoon.
According to investigators, the child fell from the balcony of an apartment building along the 300 block of West 68th Street, at around 5 p.m.
Horrified neighbors quickly called 911.
“The last thing you would imagine is that a baby is gonna fall from a balcony,” said neighbor Gladys Perez through a translator. “The other person that saw him when he came down said, ‘It’s a baby, it’s a baby,’ but I couldn’t see him.”
“I went to go see him and they told me, ‘Don’t touch him, don’t touch him,'” Viviano Perez said. “He was already on the floor. He was moving, and I saw the blood coming out of his head.”
Hialeah Police and Fire Rescue arrived quickly, witnesses said.
Hialeah Fire Capt. David Rodriguez said the boy was breathing. “He was more kind of groggy. He was breathing, kind of an in and out,” he said.
Paramedics transported the child to a nearby baseball field.
A witness recorded police with the boy on cellphone video as they stabilized him on the pavement and then rushed him to the waiting helicopter.
From there, the child was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he is listed in critical but stable condition, police said.
Maria Pinto, the woman who drove the boy’s mother to the hospital, said she’s waiting to hear more from doctors. “They say he is OK at the moment. But I don’t know nothing else.”
The Perez family said a grandmother baby-sits the boy, whose parents live on the same floor. “I was working, and I don’t know what happened,” the boy’s father said.
“Apparently he was home with some family members. She made it out to the balcony; somehow he made it off the balcony,” said Hialeah Police Lt. Carl Zogby. “Seriously injured, but he was still alive. He was stable when he left here.”
Investigators interviewed at least four adults in the apartment and checked the balcony for clues.
The Department of Children and Families is looking into the situation. However, they said the family has no history with the child welfare agency.
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