Dubai: A mother jumped off the window of her eighth floor flat of a building at the Jumeirah Lake Towers in Dubai, minutes after seeing her son accidentally fall to his death off the same window, Dubai police said.
Timeline: Child deaths after falling off balconies and flats
Dubai police said the mother was waiting with her 14-year-old daughter for the school bus on the ground floor of the tower and left her son unattended in the apartment. While waiting, she saw her son dangling off the flat’s window on the eighth floor.
Upon seeing this, the mother became hysterical and rushed to her apartment, but by that time the boy had already fallen off the window. According to police, a security guard at the building tried to grasp the boy moments before he fell on the ground, but was unsuccessful. The boy was alive after the fall but died later, police said.
A witness who saw the boy fall said in online comments: “I live in the building and unfortunately saw this happen. The security [guard] was very brave, he literally threw himself under the child to try and soften his fall, but couldn’t… [The guard] sustained serious injuries with paramedics having to take him away on a stretcher.”
According to police, the mother rushed down after she couldn’t find her son in the flat, only to discover him lying in a pool of blood at the building entrance. She then went up to her flat and jumped off the window, with her body landing on top of the son’s. The mother died instantly. Both bodies have been kept at the morgue at Rashid Hospital, awaiting the return of the woman’s husband, who was travelling but is now rushing back following the tragedy.
A witness who declined to be named told Gulf News that while dropping his child off for school, he saw a window being flung open on the eighth floor of the tower and a woman trying to jump. “Because the opening of the window was so narrow, one of her legs got caught and she was struggling to free it,” the witness said.
“By this time, several people had gathered below the building and were pleading with the woman not to jump. One of them even ran to fetch a sofa in order to cushion her fall. But the woman freed her leg and jumped again – this time she fell to the ground,” he said.
There was no housemaid at home when the incidents happened. The daughter who was witness to both her mother and brother’s death, is in a traumatic state of shock and is with her relatives, according to police and witnesses.
According to Kareema Khamis, another neighbour, the family is of Iranian origin and had moved in to the apartment only about a month back.
Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai Police Chief, was following up from the operations room as soon as he was informed about the incident. Although there is no criminal suspicion, he summoned the building’s safety engineer to find out the reason for the incidents and check if the flat’s windows were safe.
Major General Khamis Al Mazeinah, Deputy Dubai Police Chief, immediately moved to the accident site to lead the investigation.
Mohammad Hassan, an engineer by profession and a neighbour of the family who lives on the same floor, told Gulf News that he heard a loud thud and a hysterical scream at around 7am. When he came out from his apartment, he saw the mother running down to the ground floor. Hassan took the next elevator and came down to find the 5-year-old boy lying in a pool of blood near the entrance of the building, with his 15-year-old sister in school uniform holding his hand and crying.
According to witnesses, the mother rushed up to her flat soon afterwards. Hassan said he, along with a few other residents and the security guard, went up to the flat a few minutes later, but could not find the mother anywhere in the apartment. “This is when we realised she had also jumped,” he said.
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