Chinese toddler who fell out of 10th floor window remains in coma

[News_Editor]

Chinese toddler who fell out of 10th floor window remains in coma

2011-07-08 20:18:25 GMT+7 (ICT)

BEIJING (BNO NEWS) -- A two-year-old girl who fell out of a 10th floor window in eastern China on Saturday remains in a coma but is now able to breath on her own, state-run media reported on Friday.

The girl, nicknamed Niu Niu, was critically injured on Saturday when she fell out of the window of her home near Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang Province. Wu Juping, 31, was able to partly catch the toddler.

According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, doctors turned off the girl's respirator on Thursday as her breathing, blood pressure, and pulse have stabilized. An MRI scan on Friday also showed the girl's brain edema has disappeared without hemorrhaging.

However, it remains unclear if and when the child will wake up from her coma, although doctors are hopeful that she will wake up soon and eventually recover. Niu Niu attracted international media attention last week when state-run media reported that Wu catched the child as she plummeted towards the ground.

"When Niu Niu wakes up, I'll take her to meet the woman who saved her," said the girl's mother, Zhang Zhonghua. "Our families became bound together the moment Juping caught my baby."

Wu had seen Niu Niu dangling out of the window and quickly took off her high-heeled shoes and ran underneath the child, stretching her arms in the sky as the child plummeted towards the ground. Wu was not able to completely catch Niu, but the child landed on her arm before hitting the ground, breaking her fall.

Wu, who herself has a seven-month-old boy, suffered a broken arm which required surgery. "She could have died or been paralyzed for the rest of her life if the child had hit her head or back," Jin Dengfeng, the head of a local hospital, said, adding that Wu will need at least six months to recover from her injuries.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-07-08