Tragic tot plunge
Harlem boy, 3, killed in fall from 4th floor
A 3-year-old boy, left in the care of his aunt, tumbled four stories to his death in a freak Friday accident after the tiny victim detached an air conditioner panel to squeeze his way through a Harlem apartment window, police said.
An adult inside the room was unable to grab toddler Daniel Galeas before the child landed on a set of concrete steps behind the fourth-floor apartment while being baby-sat by his aunt, a source told the Daily News.
There was a bed alongside the window-mounted air conditioner, authorities said, and the boy was apparently playing there before the deadly plunge.
Teary neighbor Geraldo Busanet recalled running to the scene after a friend called 911 and seeing the little boy’s body.
“That’s gonna stay with me the rest of my life, man,” he said. “I have kids, man. And to see that happening, it’s a tragedy. I broke down like a little kid. You know, life is precious. One time you could be here and the next time, you could be gone.”
The child was able to push aside a cardboard panel framing the cooling unit in the rear bedroom window before climbing onto a ledge and falling, said a police source with knowledge of the incident at the five-story building on W. 133rd St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd.
A handful of other small children and a few adults were in the apartment when the tragedy occurred, with Daniel’s aunt tending to the small boy. An unidentified grief-stricken, hyperventilating woman was taken from the home to a local hospital, police said.
“Everyone in the apartment is devastated and crushed,” a police source said.
The Housing Department arrived about five hours after the tumble to inspect the home where the little boy fell, while the NYPD crime scene unit and the medical examiner entered the apartment a short time later.
“It breaks my heart, this little baby,” said Iesha Sekou, CEO and founder of the Harlem-based organization Street
Corner Resources. “This shook my spirit. I’m a mother and a grandmother. I can’t imagine losing a child, you know, on any level.”
The child plunged straight down into a small backyard staircase leading to the building basement, with first responders rushing the dying boy to Harlem Hospital, according to police.
An NYPD clergy liaison at the scene said he was there to offer peace, comfort and prayer to the boy’s heartbroken family.
“What I’m hearing is that it was a family member that was babysitting, and that’s tough, you know, to believe that you left your child safe with a family member,” he said. “So I’m preparing myself to have the right words to say.”