KIEV, January 7 (RIA Novosti) - A three-year-old boy from the Ukrainian city of Kharkov fell eight storeys and survived because a huge heap of snow broke his fall, the regional interior ministry department said on Monday.
The child apparently opened a window of his room, leaned out and fell when his mother left him unattended on January 5.
"The child… fell into a huge snowdrift under the window. He survived and was rushed to the city’s medical emergency hospital. Doctors said his condition is grave, but stable,” the department said in a statement.
Several cases of lucky survivors have been reported in the past years. In 2008, a window cleaner plummeted 47 storeys from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper and survived.
A year later, a 29-year-old Chinese woman miraculously escaped death after she jumped off the 27th floor.
In 2010, a 10-year-old Chinese boy who fell 20 stories from an apartment window survived after landing on a parked car.
Last year, a 22-year-old Australian woman survived an unsuccessful bungee jump from a 111-meter bridge. She suffered only bruises and a broken collar bone when her safety cord snapped, sending her into the crocodile-infested waters of the Zambezi River.
