MID-MEETING. It was a few seconds that were probably life-changing for an eight-year-old girl in Mittertreffling (Urfahr-Surroundings district) early on Sunday afternoon. A 41-year-old passer-by was able to catch the child in time after it fell out of a window on the first floor of a block of flats.
“It was a soft landing”
“The girl was hanging with her back to the wall and her stomach about 20 centimeters below the window and then fell down on me from a height of about four meters. I caught her with both arms. It was a soft landing,” said Martin M. , who only realized the rescue later. “My feet trembled a lot afterwards,” says the farmer.
But how did it come about in the first place? The local had been visiting friends with his wife and two children. The family was on their way home when his wife suddenly called out: “Stop right now, there’s a child hanging on the windowsill!” “I didn’t have much time to think about it. I knew if I made an emergency call now, it wouldn’t work anymore.” So Martin M. jumped out of the car and then over an adjacent hedge. “Five seconds later the child fell towards me.”
The 41-year-old immediately asked his protégé about his condition. A neighbor rang the bell at the apartment, whereupon first the father and then the mother appeared. “I described what happened, they thanked me very much.” After the neighbor Martin M. said that children were playing at the open window in the apartment the night before, the rescuer reported the incident to the police. “So that another child doesn’t fall out of the window.”
He doesn’t want to be seen as a hero. “I’m just glad it turned out that way.” In any case, he did a special job for his daughter (8): “She said: ‘Dad, I think you saved the girl’s life.'” (nieg)
Source: Nachrichten
