TORONTO -- Dramatic video showed a toddler who had crawled out of a 13th-floor New York City apartment window before his teenage sister managed to save him.
The three-year old child was seen on video resting on top of an air conditioning unit jutting out of the window of a Bronx apartment window.
In the video, which was shot from the ground below, people can be heard yelling and attempting to encourage the child to go back inside.
Jennifer Mares, who recorded the video, told WCBS that “it was unbelievable” and that her “heart was in panic.”
She also took action, running into the building to bang on the apartment door.
“We just rushed inside because they (the family) had no idea that the baby was outside,” Mares said.
The child’s mother, who wished not to be identified, told WCBS that she had been cooking dinner and periodically checking on her toddler and his older brother who were watching TV in the living room.
'I'm a good mother. I’m not a monster': mother
The mother told WCBS her child had pushed out a plastic covering connected to their A.C. unit and crawled out of the window.
She tearfully expressed gratitude to her teenage daughter who is credited with grabbing the child before he could fall.
“I thank her. She’s everything to me,” the mother said, calling the rescue a “miracle from God.”
“I want people to know, I’m a good mother. I’m not a monster,” she told WCBS, explaining that there were window guards, but they’d been removed to install the A/C unit.
The guards have since been put back into place.
Both the New York Police Department and the New York City Administration for Children's Services are now investigating. NBC New York reports that no charges have been filed.
