SISTER RECALLS BROTHER FALLING OUT OF SECOND STORY HOME
- laurentubbe
- Mar 2, 2021
- 2 min read
Lauren Tubbe
March 2, 2021
A toddler playing with his siblings fell out of a second story window when it gave way. His sister said he landed on his feet on the concrete driveway, suffering a broken ankle, cracked teeth, and a bitten-through tongue.
Located in the historic North East neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, the Ontman siblings were jumping off a second-story window ledge and landing on a mattress inside the house. Joy-Noel, the elder of the siblings, recalled Paul saying, “no I’m not gonna jump that far”. The younger sibling was banging himself against the window in protest when it came out of the frame. “He was just gone” the older sister said.
“I didn’t really know what was happening. I was young enough that I wasn’t afraid.” She yelled for her father, “he fell out the window! He fell out the window!” Running outside to the missing sibling, the shocked sister recalled not knowing what to do. She was confused, not thinking that her brother could be seriously hurt. “It was chaotic”.
Ontman didn’t get to see her brother at first. The siblings’ parents and a neighbor who witnessed the fall called 911. Ontman said the neighbor originally thought the child was a doll. The sibling had blood coming out of his mouth, and their mother was worried about an internal injury. In disbelief, the sister was more fascinated by the fireman and policeman presence at the scene. Upon discovering her brother, he was upright on his feet. That “should not have happened”, she recalled. There was a ledge on the house which caused the boy to flip as he hit it while falling, flipping him around.
The younger Ontman was crying in the ambulance in a neck brace, confused at what happened. While falling, the boy’s knee jammed into his chin before landing on the concrete driveway. Injuries sustained were a bleeding tongue, a few cracked teeth, and a broken ankle. This incident became known in the family as “Paul and the great fall”, the elder Ontman sibling recounted with a laugh.
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