Butler Co. Child Released From Hospital After Fall From 2nd Floor Window
BUTLER (KDKA) – Police are investigating after a toddler fell about 10 to 12 feet out of a window in Butler County.
The boy, 18-month-old James Whalan, fell out of a second-floor window at a home in the 400-block of South Monroe Street in Butler on Monday afternoon.
His family says, after being checked out at Children's Hospital overnight, he's doing well and has been released with just a bruise.
"He's good, so I'm good," James' mother, Jennifer Frank, said after arriving home from the hospital. "It was terrifying.
According to James' grandfather, the toddler suffered only a bruise to his back in the fall.
"It was actually that window on the left there. He just squeezed in between the fan and that window jam and came outside," Jim Petrigni, James' grandfather, said.
Somehow the toddler pushed past a child's gate on the first floor of the house, made his way to an upstairs bedroom and got onto the bed and out the window.
"The bed was apparently10 to 12 inches from the window. He pushed through a fan, he got onto the roof and then at some point rolled off or fell off the roof and down onto a dirt area near a patio," Beaver City Police Deputy Chief David Adam said.
"My middle daughter was the first one to find him," Petrigni said. "She was cooking and heard something going on upstairs; she knew it was him. She ran up, he wasn't there, she ran back downstairs and out the door he was lying on the ground. I think what he saw was the cat on the roof, and he went after the cat."
The grandfather says he plans to make some changes around the house.
"That one particular gate he got past, it needs replaced," Petrigni said. "My plan was to re-screen all the screens. I just didn't get to it yet."
Frank says they kept her son at the hospital overnight for observation.
Police say they are talking with CYF to determine if charges will be filed later.
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