Girl Falls From Window

The death of an eight-year-old girl who fell out a third-floor window was “a terrible accident,” the child’s grandmother said.

Neshonda Brown Baylark had been bouncing on a bed at the grandmother’s St. Louis, MO, home when she hit an unsecured sheet of Plexiglas covering a window, police said.

The Plexiglas gave way and Neshonda fell through, rolling off a small overhang before hitting the asphalt sidewalk about 30 feet (10 meters) below the window.

Carlos Baylark said he heard screaming and ran outside to see his daughter on the ground.

“I knelt there and held her in my arms until the ambulance came,” he said. “I tried to talk to her. I kept telling her, ‘I love you,’ but I don’t know if she heard me. ”

Baylark said his family had gone to his mother’s home to visit relatives.

His mother, Catherine Baylark, said several children were “just playing and watching TV. ” There was not an adult in the room at the time. “It was a terrible accident,” she said.

Carlos Baylark said his daughter had been an honor roll student. He said she loved to read and sing in the junior choir at church.

When you go home after work today, take a look around your house for unexpected hazards such as this one. And then fix them before a tragedy happens. Windows are hazardous places for children, with fatalities from falls, glass cuts and entanglement in window covering cords.

Source: Kansas City Star, November 26, 2006