4-Year-Old Boy Survives 11-Story Fall From Window
Saturday, July 08, 2006

ALBANY, New York — A 4-year-old boy survived a fall from an 11-story apartment window, bouncing off a metal awning into a concrete courtyard and then trying to stand up. He was able to chat with doctors, leaving police and medical workers shocked, according to a media report.

"I'm amazed the kid's alive," Police Chief James Tuffey told the Times Union newspaper.

Hasim Townsend remained in serious condition Saturday with a broken skull, a broken leg and other injuries.

"It's an incredibly good sign that he was talking and I can't attribute it to anything other than good luck," Dr. Michael Dailey, an attending physician in the emergency department, told the newspaper.

Townsend ended up in the same pediatric intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center where his mother works as a receptionist, police reports said.

The boy's mother, Elizabeth Burciaga, 21, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Police said she at first told them the boy had been left with a baby sitter, but he had actually been left alone Friday.

A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for Burciaga, and an order of protection to keep her from Townsend has been filed.

Police said the boy stood up on a bed and pressed against a window screen that gave way. He hit the awning about 12 feet off the ground, and police said the flex of that awning saved him. Police came after residents heard him crying.