Boy, 2, dies in hospital hours after falling from 10th-floor flat in Hong Kong
- Child may have been left unattended at home when mother was taking daughter to school, police source says
- According to police, boy hit tin-sheet canopy on eighth floor before falling onto pavement
A two-year-old boy died in hospital hours after falling from his 10th-floor subdivided flat in Hong Kong on Monday.
A preliminary investigation suggested the child had been left unattended at home in the 19-storey Man Yuen Building in Yau Ma Tei at the time of his fall at 10.11am, a police source said.
“The investigation showed his 36-year-old mother left home at about 9am when he was asleep, taking his elder sister to school and going to get free diapers,” the source said.
“We believe the boy woke up and climbed onto the upper deck of a bunk bed, from where he climbed out of the ventilation window and fell out of the building.”
He said it was possible the boy was trying to pick up a lantern that had been left on the canopy outside his flat. Officers were investigating whether it was his toy.
According to police, the boy hit a tin-sheet canopy on the eighth floor before falling onto the pavement.
Emergency personnel rushed to the scene after a passer-by found the injured boy and called police.
A police spokesman said the child was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei, where he died shortly after 6.30pm.
Police later located his mother, an Indonesian who holds a recognisance form, a temporary identification document that permits the bearer to remain in the city.
According to the force, the mother was arrested for ill-treatment or neglect of a child.
As of 7pm, she was still being held for questioning and had not been charged.
Officers from the Yau Tsim district crime squad are handling the case.
