A man has been labelled a ‘national hero’ after miraculously catching a two-year-old girl after she plummeted out of a fifth-storey window.
Shen Dong, 31, was parking his car across the street from the block of flats in Tongxiang, in the Zhejiang province of China, when he heard a loud thud.
The child tumbled out of the window and fell four storeys, before landing on a steel roof.
The little girl then proceeded to slide off the roof and was about to hit the pavement, but was saved at the last minute after Shen caught hold of her before she hit the concrete.
The girl suffered injuries to her legs and lungs during the incident, but has since been taken to hospital where she is currently in a stable condition, the South China Morning Post reports.
Footage of the incident was shared by local police on Weibo – the Chinese equivalent to Twitter – where it immediately went viral.
Shen, who works at a bank across the street, was already in the process of calling the emergency services along with a colleague after spotting the situation unfolding in front of him.
But after realising she was about to fall, Shen’s instincts took over as he threw his phone to the ground and managed to catch the toddler before she hit the floor.
Speaking to local news after the incident, Shen said he didn’t know the girl was a child until she started to crawl towards the edge of the first-floor terrace.
‘To be honest, I cannot remember the details,’ Shen told Qianjiang Evening News.
‘I cannot remember if my arms hurt or anything. It was just instinct to reach out to her.
‘It was lucky I made it in time. Otherwise, I would feel absolutely horrible.’
He said the child survived because the terrace she fell onto included steel roofing materials, which helped to soften the fall.
People on social media have branded Shen a ‘superhero’ for his quick thinking and heroic deeds.
In a similar case 11 years ago, a young mum named Wu Juping was praised for miraculously catching a toddler who fell from the ninth floor as she was walking below the building.
The girl survived, and Wu broke her arms.
She was branded China’s ‘most beautiful mother’ for her heroism.
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