Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

Video Credit: AsiaWire

This is the moment an aunt manages to shield her infant nephew in her arms after a slab of concrete cladding ‘as big as a washbasin’ falls from above and knocks them to the ground.

CCTV footage from 22nd July shows Ms Chang protecting her seven-month-old nephew and ducking away from the building as the outer wall crumbles and falls crashes to the ground next to her.

The video from the city of Gongzhuling in China’s north-eastern province of Jilin shows some of the debris hitting Ms Chang, knocking her to the ground outside her brother-in-law’s ground-floor corner shop.

Pictures Credit: AsiaWire

Ms Chang, who had been babysitting her nephew, recalled: “I was holding the baby and was on my way out when I heard this rumbling noise.

“I thought something was going to fall, but I didn’t know what it was, so I tried to make a run for it.

“I managed about two steps before the wall cladding fell hit me.”

Doctors at the local Yangguang Hospital said Ms Chang suffered injuries to her hip, back and right arm and leg.

She is expected to make a full recovery but will require further treatment at the facility.

The boy, meanwhile, escaped with a scratch on his buttock and a bruised foot thanks to his aunt’s protection.

Ms Chang said: “I cheated death. That exterior of the wall fell right where I had been standing, and it was a huge piece cladding an entire balcony.

“That piece of debris that hit me in the hip was as big as a washbasin.”

She said about her protecting her nephew: “I have a child too. Protecting him was only natural.

“Even if it wasn’t my nephew, I’d have done the same for anybody else’s child.”

Ms Chang and her family are now in talks with the building’s owner, the Shiyan Jiayuan Residential District, over compensation for her medical costs.

Building management argues that the high-rise was constructed before they took over, saying Ms Chang will have go through legal means to obtain damages.

The building is reportedly around 10 years old.

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