It is an amazing story of misfortune, incredible luck and survival.
And it has a mother wondering about her grip, a little baby recovering in hospital, and neighbours and police astounded by an ending of miraculous good fortune.
It happened at
1300 Mississauga Valley Blvd. near Burnhamthorpe and Hurontario around the noon hour, when a mother came out on the balcony of her apartment on a beautiful warm Friday afternoon. She was holding her one-year-old boy in her arms, and everything seemed normal.
Then the child unexpectedly started to move. "The baby started to wriggle in her arms and she lost her grip of him and off he went," Peel Police Cst. Marlene Murphy tells
CityNews.ca.
The mom watched in horror as her child fell eight storeys to the ground below. "She was extremely distraught when we arrived," Murphy confirms.
But this story has an ending that can only be described as unbelievable. The infant hit some dense shrubbery as he descended, which broke his fall at the last minute.
He was rushed to Trillium Health Centre where he was diagnosed as having a broken nose and just some cuts and bruises. He's expected to make a full recovery.
The miracle growth where the little boy landed
Neighbours who heard the commotion and the emergency vehicles arrive were stunned to learn the child had not only survived but wasn't seriously hurt.
Like police, they're calling it a miracle.
Norma Paillie heard the aftermath. "First a child crying for three to five minutes," she remembers. "And then I heard a blood curdling scream from a woman and then words in another language I didn't understand. ... And that continued for two minutes."
Cops have now finished their probe into the incident and have ruled it an accident. No charges will be laid but there's no word on why the mom got so close to the edge of the ledge with the baby in her arms.