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Baby falls eight stories: Neighbors recall the incident where a woman jumped eight stories with her baby in arms. However, the baby survived the fall.
The Sutton apartments where Cynthia Wachenheim lived, before she jumped from an 8th floor window March 13. (Screenshot of Google maps image taken by The Epoch Times.)
A baby survived an 8-story fall after his mother jumped from from a Manhattan building in an apparent suicide attempt.
The woman, Cynthia Wachenheim, clutched her 10-month-old baby, Keston, in her arms during the fall, but the baby apparently bounced off the woman’s chest when she hit the ground, recalls witness Steven Dominguez.
“The baby bounced off her chest onto the floor, face down and was crying. My mother tried to pick up the baby, but there was already a detective there, and it was his responsibility after that,” Dominguez told WPIX-11 television.
He added: “Yeah, I wish I never witnessed that. But I wish I nobody ever has to witness that. It’s disturbing, and horrible.”
While he was outside on Bradhurst Avenue in Harlem, Dominguez said that “heard like a small scream, like a yell, and I noticed something falling from the sky.”
According to The Associated Press, the baby was taken to a hospital by a police officer and was listed as being in critical but stable condition.
Authorities also discovered a seven-page suicide note, in which Wachenheim said that she realized that she was going to do something “evil” by jumping from a building with her child, AP reported However, she said she was concerned with the child’s development.
She apparently jumped from a window in the apartment, police said, adding there were no signs of struggle.
Christian Johnson, who lives two doors down from Wachenheim, said he heard Wachenheim arguing with someone three hours before.
“When I came home, they were arguing. And I actually stopped to listen, and I heard screaming, and the baby was crying,” he told WPIX-11. “He just kept saying, ‘Why wouldn’t you pick up the phone, why would you put that stress on me? Why wouldn’t you pick up the phone, why, why?’”
Local resident Yaa Dwamena described Wachenheim as “very nice, very friendly, very warm,” AP reported.
“I wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong with her,” she added. “They were a happy-looking family. I wouldn’t think anything like this would happen.”
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