national

4-year-old boy falls to his death from apartment building

13 Comments

A four-year-old boy fell to his death from an apartment building where he lived in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward on Saturday.

According to police, a resident called 119 at around 4:30 p.m. and said a boy had fallen from the 14-story municipal apartment building and was lying on the 2nd-floor roof covering the entranceway, Kyodo News reported. The boy was taken to hospital where he died about 90 minutes later.

Police said that prior to the incident, the boy was seen playing with friends near the building entrance and that lobby surveillance camera footage showed him getting into the elevator by himself. They believe that after getting off the elevator on the 12th floor, the boy somehow fell from the corridor or stairwell.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

13 Comments
Login to comment

Nothing about the parents is written in the article. It would be nice to know if they were even home. Poor kid. RIP.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

its so easy to blame the parents. In fact probably a knee jerk blame game but the true culprit is poor building designs. Every building should ask itself the same question, Can I child get through this gap? Better still…. Don’t build any gaps.

3 ( +9 / -6 )

Awful, heartbreaking for the parents. It's every parents worst nightmare.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

@Mocheake

So it would have been better if the parents weren’t home and left a 4yo home alone?

Good job mom and dad! It’s not that hard to watch ur kids and don’t let a 4yo outside by themselves! And I’m speaking from experience as a parent. If dogs can take care of their pups, it’s not that hard for humans to keep a metaphorical leash on your kid!

2 ( +7 / -5 )

I've never understood why people with small children live in high rise apartments. The Kiplings didn't exactly for this reason. Why take the risk? Every year there are numerous cases. Most do not make the headlines.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

"Seen playing with friends"

Was there adult supervision at all.

Easy to blame the parents (as many on this site do).

Casting stones.

I, myself, feel for the parents, nobody expects things this, I'm sure they are punishing themselves enough, they don't need people who have no knowledge of the incident to berate them.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Sometimes life can be just cruel and hit you hard. Accidents happen. No matter how prepare you think you are. The boy merely acted as he should at someone his age. Play around with others. And fact is this was a accident. Readers don't need to point the fingers at the parents or the building. You can never 100% foolproof life.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

@Hiro

Yep. Wise words.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Having a 4 year old myself I can definitely say things like this could have happened to myself or anyone else if 2 or 3 things went wrong at the same time. I'm sure the parents are punishing themselves enough already, no need for others to add to it.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

“a resident called 119 at around 4:30 p.m”

parents didn’t even know it happened!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

It's quite clear why it happened -- no prevention put into place. The boy was likely in the stairwell and leaned over to say bye to his friends and fell over. Might help to ask the friends and see if indeed the kid was monkeying around in the stairwell, or even on his balcony.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I wouldn’t exclude anything here, someone calling from beneath, ADHS , or even an intentionally ‘helping’ hand and more. What have you usually done when you were a young toddler? Playing heavily around on the 12th floorand making quite some athletic training on the stairways or climbing balcony , which all would require quite some force and good muscles or an additional tool for a four years old to climb on? No, when leaving the escalator you wouldn’t run to the stairways or climb something but rush like crazy returning to your apartment and enter, because you can’t wait to see your parents or to play with all the interesting toys waiting in your room.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

> EugeneOct. 23  06:30 pm JST

"Seen playing with friends"

Was there adult supervision at all.

Easy to blame the parents (as many on this site do).

Casting stones.

I, myself, feel for the parents, nobody expects things this, I'm sure they are punishing themselves enough, they don't need people who have no knowledge of the incident to berate them.

Even if the parents did anything wrong, even if they were negligent - not even the law can punish them as much as they're probably punishing themselves. And that's a big IF.

One way or another, it's very sad and tragic that a 4 y/o who hasn't really lived as yet now never will. May he RIP and be happy in the afterlife.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites