Pregnant neighbor's timely intervention saves toddler who fell from window
A pregnant woman walking her dog in Des Moines, Iowa, saved the life of her neighbor's son after the toddler fell out of a second-story window earlier this month, rescuing the 2-year-old child before he could plummet to his death or suffer severe injuries.
At nearly 33 weeks pregnant, Kyrie Jones took her Pomeranian puppy, Prince, outside the shared driveway between the townhouses on the 1900 block of Merle Hay Road on May 8, according to local CBS affiliate KCCI.
Jones intended to head back inside once her dog had done its business. But she noticed a window screen and a PlayStation controller lying on the ground, she told The Washington Post.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
At first, she thought nothing of it, thinking that perhaps her neighbor had accidentally left some trash outside her house when taking the garbage out. But Jones heard a loud noise. The source of the sound was her next-door neighbor's townhouse.
Looking up, she saw her neighbor's 2-year-old son throwing things outside an open, second-story window. To Jones' horror, she saw the toddler leaning over the edge. She worried that he might fall.
The 35-year-old woman tried to warn the toddler to go back inside, telling the boy, "Go get mommy!" The boy didn't listen, and he remained at the edge of the window.
Jones, afraid that she might unintentionally encourage the boy to lean out further by talking to him, ran back inside her house and exited through the front door, darting to her neighbor's house. The pregnant woman knocked on the door and rang the bell at her neighbor's house, but there was no answer.
Jones called the police, providing them with information about the situation before racing back to the rear of the townhouse to check on the boy. By this time, the boy had fallen from the window and was clinging to the edge, crying as he dangled above the concrete below.
Although Jones screamed for help, nobody came.
A minute went by, and the toddler lost his grip after trying to pull himself up. Jones caught him before he hit the ground in what she described as "an almost squat position" where the child's feet barely touched the ground.
"He kind of hit my belly a little bit," she told KCCI. "I think the adrenaline kicked in, and I didn't feel anything."
The woman obtained a few bruises on her thighs but was alright, according to The Post. A few minutes later, police arrived at the scene.
The neighbor wrapped the boy in a coat from her house because his diaper had fallen off before bringing him to the front door of his home alongside the police. The toddler's mother eventually emerged from the house and retrieved her son.
The horror of what might have happened if Jones had not been there to catch the child is something she does not want to think about as a fall from the second-story window of the townhouse is a "pretty high drop" to the concrete ground below.
"I would have walked out to either a crime scene or a baby screaming," the pregnant woman said.
Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Police Department, told The Washington Post that the toddler’s mother was in another room in the townhouse and left her son unsupervised for a “short period.”
While the police have not pressed charges against the toddler's mother, they did refer the case to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, according to Parizek.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
