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Car breaks toddler’s 6-story fall from Washington State apartment complex

Posted at 1:42 PM, Apr 11, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-11 13:42:14-04

REDMOND, Wash. - A 20-month-old child was hospitalized with serious injuries Wednesday after falling from the sixth floor of a Redmond apartment complex and landing on top of a parked car.

Police got an emergency call at about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday from Redmond Square Apartments after the toddler fell out of a window.  Authorities said the toddler was laying on a mattress pad on the floor and propped himself up to the window, falling out. The window is reportedly only about one foot off the ground inside the apartment, making it accessible to the child.

Officials said the child's mother was in another room in the apartment when it happened, and his sister was the first to notice the boy's absence.

"The 4-year-old sister discovered her brother was no longer in the room and came out screaming to the mom that something bad had happened," said Redmond Police Public Information Officer James Perry.

When police arrived at the apartment complex, the boy was alive and crying, and it was all thanks to Edward Lu's blue Mazda.

"That's when I found out the kid had fallen on my car," Lu said.

A dent in the roof of his car marks the spot where the boy landed.

“It’s about 60 to 70 feet; if the car hadn’t been there this would’ve been a completely different story," Perry said. "The denting on top of the car suggests it absorbed a lot of the impact from the child."

Lu just happened to bike to work Wednesday instead of driving his car, which would've left his parking spot empty at the time of the fall.

"Yeah you know, if I had driven in today I don't know what would've happened. We're all lucky I guess that I biked in rather than driving," he said.

It's a fall that's turned Lu into a believer of miracles.

"I can't say I do normally, but this time, I don't know how else to term it," he said.

The child was taken to Harborview Medical Center after the fall. A hospital spokesperson said Wednesday evening that he was in serious but stable condition.