- A 3-year-old boy fell from the 18th floor of an apartment in Hangzhou, China
- The boy climbed out of an unlocked bathroom window without safety bars
- He landed on a tree branch, which broke his fall and prevented a direct hit
A 3-year-old boy in China miraculously survived a fall from the 18th floor of his apartment. According to the South China Morning Post, the incident occurred on July 15 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, when the little boy was left in the care of his grandparents. Believing that the child was asleep, the grandparents briefly left home to buy groceries, locking the door of the flat to ensure that the toddler stayed inside. However, the child woke up and went to the bathroom, where he climbed onto the toilet and out of an unlocked window that had no safety bars, plunging down.
According to the SCMP, the boy's fall was broken by a tree, and he miraculously survived. The toddler was found on the ground by a resident from the same community who filmed the scene and posted the footage in the property management group. It was only after seeing the message that the child's father, identified as Zhu, learned that his son had fallen.
"At first, I could not believe he had fallen from the 18th floor until surveillance footage from the property management group confirmed it," the father said, per the outlet. He added that during the fall, his son had likely been "obstructed" by an open window on the 17th floor, which caused a "deviation" in his trajectory. This led him to land directly on a tree before hitting the ground. "Otherwise, the child would have landed directly on the concrete," Zhu said.
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A surveillance footage also showed the child brushing past an open window and landing in the branches of a tree before plunging face-first into a bush on the ground, rather than directly on concrete.
After being discovered, the boy was immediately rushed to the hospital. Doctors described his survival as a "miracle," The Independent reported. The little boy sustained a fractured left arm, spinal strain and damage to internal organs. But his head remained uninjured, and he was fully conscious throughout. Astonishingly, the boy even asked the medical team to "ask daddy to buy me a Bumblebee" toy shortly after the incident.
As a mark of gratitude, the boy's father later adorned the "life-saving tree" with a large red flower - a traditional Chinese symbol of honour and celebration.
