Story By:  Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

A five-year-old girl who survived a fall from her family’s sixth-floor apartment has returned home after spending over a month in hospital.

Little Azra fell six storeys while cycling on the apartment terrace while her mum was putting her younger brother to sleep.

She even slipped through the outstretched arms of a passerby trying to catch her, bouncing off his right leg before hitting the ground and prompting her dad Recep Alpsoy to say it was a miracle she was here at all.

He said: “It will take a long time for Azra to recover, but thank God for it. We are very happy that she is still with us. She does not remember the events.”

He added that they have left her thinking that she fell from a slide.

But the shocking incident – caught on CCTV – saw her fall from the family apartment on the sixth floor of the building in the Sukru Pasa area of Yakutiye district, in the province of Erzurum in eastern Turkey, on 21st April at about 6pm.

Azra is Recep’s and his wife Figen’s eldest child and she had lost her balance on the apartment balcony while her mum was putting her younger brother to sleep.

As she was clinging to the ledge, a neighbour luckily saw her and screamed, asking for help from people on the street.

Ahmet Ceylan, a 37-year-old married dad of three, sprinted to her rescue and waited below the dangling youngster with his arms outstretched.

But when Azra lost her grip she fell straight through Ceylan’s arms.

The man instinctively extended his leg as well to slow Azra’s speed and afterwards medical teams were dispatched to the scene.

Azra was taken to the Ataturk University Research Hospital by ambulance.

Intensive care medics diagnosed that she had suffered fractures to her hip and foot, as well as swelling to her brain, while Ceylan had suffered a rupture to the ligaments in his right foot.

Azra, who was taken to the paediatric service from the intensive care unit on 6th May, was discharged on 25th May after extensive treatment.

Her father said of her miracle escape: “We are very happy. We went through a difficult process.

“There were difficult days for a long time. It is very difficult for a person to wait for his child in front of the intensive care unit and operating room.”

But he also said he was happy that God had returned his young daughter to him.

He added: “Of course, we have not forgotten my daughter’s saviour, Ahmet.

“If our child is with us now, it is first thanks to Allah and then to Ahmet. Azra is my first child.”

Recep said: “May God never let us or anyone else experience such an event again.”

Little Azra still needs to undergo an unspecified, third operation at a later date.