Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
Video Credit: AsiaWire
This heart-stopping footage shows a crying toddler screaming for her mum while helplessly hanging from her family’s balcony balustrade nine storeys up.
The three-year-old left at home alone by her mother had squeezed through the 4-inch gap between the balcony railings in search of her parent, but found herself unable to get back inside on the morning of 23rd October.
Shocking video showing the girl dangling precariously over the edge of the building while residents prepare to catch her with blankets or even their bare hands was filmed by neighbours in the Tonghe Huacai Meidi Residential District in Nanning, capital of South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Footage of the high-rise shows 8th-floor resident Ms Xu tossing a blanket onto the ground below and then holding out her hands in anticipation of the girl’s fall from the balcony above.
More neighbours join her on her balcony moments later, and video shows them pleading with the girl to hold on – and to stop looking down.
The girl repeatedly screaming for her mum is later rescued when residents burst into her home and hold on to her from inside the balcony railings.
Her mum returned about 30 minutes later, residents said, and the child is lifted to safety.
Downstairs neighbour Ms Xu recalled: “I was in my kitchen and heard loud screaming.
“I went to my balcony and looked up to see the child’s feet dangling above me!
“I went upstairs and tried knocking on her door, but no one answered.
“The residents called for blankets, so I threw them one, and then I told them to come to my flat.
“I took another blanket and they held it below her.
“She nearly fell so many times.
“I could only tell her to stay still. I told her her mum was her on the way home.”
The girl’s mum, Ms Huang, later revealed that she had gone out to shop for groceries and decided to leave her youngest sleeping at home.
Her husband was at work and her eldest was already at school when the scared happened, Ms Huang said.
The tot’s family has expressed their gratitude to all the neighbours who took part in the rescue.
In China, it is illegal to leave minors unattended at home.
Parents and guardians face serious punishment in unattended and unsupervised children come to harm.
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