Quincy boy, 5, survives fall
A 5-year-old Quincy boy who fell out a window and plummeted seven stories miraculously survived when a tree broke his fall, authorities said.
The boy was playing with his brother shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday at Captain’s Cove Condominiums on Cove Way while their parents were in separate rooms, when the 5-yearold apparently leaned on the window screen and fell, authorities said.
“He probably went out with the screen,” Quincy police Sgt. Joseph Lencki said yesterday, “and there were some trees and bushes and some mulch that luckily broke his fall.”
The boy was crying when first responders arrived, but he never lost consciousness.
He was taken by ambulance to Boston Children’s Hospital and discharged Sunday.
Yesterday, the boy’s family declined to comment other than to say that he was fine.
“It’s a miracle,” Lencki said. “I’ve been on (the force) 20 years. It’s definitely a miracle.”
No charges are expected in connection with the fall, which was being treated as an accident.
The incident was at least the third of its kind in less than two weeks in the Boston area.
Yesterday, a 5-year-old girl was critically injured and later died when she fell from a fourth-story window with a screen in it on Beacon Street in Brookline, authorities said.
Last month, a 2-year-old Chelsea boy suffered only cuts and bruises after he fell through a second-floor window screen and landed on his beloved stuffed cow.
In each case, the fall might have been prevented if the windows had had the kind of child safety guard that some cities require landlords to install.
A bill introduced in January by state Sen. Mark C. Montigny (D– New Bedford) would give parents with children younger than 10 the right, at no charge, to have their landlord install window guards in their apartment and the common areas of their building.