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28 March 2024

Baby falls from seventh floor, bounces off, lives

Picture used for illustrative purposes only. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Agencies

A 15-month-old baby girl survived a fall from a seventh-floor apartment in Paris almost unscathed after bouncing off a cafe awning and into the arms of a passer-by , police said .

The infant had been playing unsupervised with her four-year-old sister when she somehow fell out of the window, a spokesman for local city police said.

A young boy saw the baby starting to fall and alerted his father, who raced to get into position, arms outstretched, to catch her after she hit the awning, the Le Parisien newspaper reported.

The man with the quick reflexes and good hands, a doctor, looked over the girl and didn't find any injuries, but handed her off to an ambulance crew to be safe, according to Le Parisien . "My son saw a little baby on a balcony.

The baby had gone right outside the railing... I said to myself I mustn't miss the baby," the toddler's saviour, local doctor Philippe Bensignor , said recounting Monday's drama.

"I had time to move from side to side to get in the right position," he added. "The little baby was fine and cried a little bit but calmed down straightaway."

"He must have played rugby for years to have developed reflexes like that," a bystander who saw the incident told the paper.

Police said the girl appeared to have no serious injuries and was under observation in a nearby hospital.
The owner of the cafe, located at the foot of the block of flats in the northeast of Paris, said it was a stroke of luck he had decided to leave the awning open that afternoon.

"I usually close it to stop it catching fire as people tend to throw their cigarette butts onto it," he told the television station i-tele .

"It's a real miracle," said the cafe's barman , who gave his name as Gaby, pointing to a small tear in the awning where the toddler bounced off.

The police spokesman said the circumstances behind the accident were unclear. "The parents were absent, and it's a bit difficult questioning the two girls, given their age."

Police say they have detained the parents of the baby for questioning. According to police , the parents had gone for a stroll on Monday , a French holiday, and left the 15-month old with his four-year-old sister in the family apartment in eastern Paris.