Balcony safety in high-rise living
That was a few years back in 1991 when I heard news about famed singer Eric Clapton’s son. He literally ran out of an open full-height window in the apartment owned by his mother’s friend where they stayed while on holiday. The window, about six feet high and four feet wide, was negligently left open after it was cleaned by a housekeeper. The boy entered the room and darted past both his nanny and the housekeeper and fell out onto a neighboring building. The window was not designed to be opened, and strangely, was not properly fitted with security features. The toddler plummeted down 29 floors.
In another incident in the United Kingdom, a 5-year-old boy came within minutes of falling 30 meters to his death after climbing onto the balcony of a midrise flat as his mother took a nap inside. An onlooker managed to video the nerve-wracking incident after calling in the police. The little boy sat, while swinging and dangling his legs, in what looked like a happy appreciation of the expansive view in front of him. Fortunately, the police came to his rescue.