New York toddler falls to his death from 29th floor balcony, cops say

There are tragic scenes coming out of New York this morning after a three-year-old boy fell to his death from a high-rise balcony.

The child dies after falling 29 storeys. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

A 3-year-old boy died on Saturday after falling from the 29th-floor balcony of an apartment building in New York as his distraught mother screamed “my baby, my baby” from the street below, police and witnesses said.

Neighbours described hearing what sounded like a “boom” and a “thump” when the toddler fell and landed on fifth-floor scaffolding of a high-rise at the Taino Towers residential complex in Harlem at around 11:10am the New York Police Department said.

“It sounded like something really heavy. It sounded like construction,” Tangerine Castro, who lives on the 23rd floor, said of the thunderous “boom”, according to the New York Post.

“We just started looking and everybody started coming out of their building,” she said. “Everybody that were upstairs that could see down, saw the little boy with the yellow shirt. He was flat in the scaffolding.”

The child’s mother, who was outside at the time, then began to yell, witnesses said.

“She was sitting on the ground in her socks. She was screaming, ‘My baby, my baby, he is up there’,” said neighbour Alexander Townsend, 25.

The boy’s father, meanwhile, “ran downstairs crying” and tried to climb onto the scaffolding to get his son but couldn’t, Mr Townsend said.

Preliminary reports are that the child’s fall was accidental, police said.

The child dies after falling 29 storeys. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

Nidia Cordero, 58, a foster mother who lives on the 34th floor, said her kids heard “a big fight” between adults coming from the 29th-storey balcony and less than 10 minutes later, there was a “thump”.

“When you look out the terrace you see the baby’s body. He was in his diapers and T-shirt,” Ms Cordero said.

“Then you hear screams.

“I think the mum was screaming and I looked and the baby was in the scaffolding.”

Ms Cordero said she had helped the tot’s mother in the past, even buying him diapers and milk.

“He was a beautiful little boy,” Ms Cordero said.

The neighbour said she had seen the child in the building elevator with his dad, and described the boy as looking “withdrawn”.

The NYPD would not comment except to say, “the investigation is continuing”.

Ms Castro, 33, the resident on the 23rd floor, said the balconies are about 30 years old and are in the process of being replaced. She said that mosquito netting on the balconies is quite old too.

“We don’t have no AC right now. Everybody hangs out on the balcony right now but I can’t say if it’s one thing or another,” she said of what could have led to the tragedy.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and has been reproduced with permission