June 29, 2012

5:15 PM

Portland Firefighters from Station 27 in the Forest Park neighborhood responded just before 2:30 this afternoon to a child that had fallen approximately 15' from a window. Initial reports suggest that the boy was playing in an upstairs bedroom and managed to open up the window before the fall. He landed onto a concrete entryway below before falling the remaining distance to the ground.

After arriving on scene in the 10100 block of NW Ash Court, initial examinations and vital signs revealed that the child had sustained critical injuries, including significant head injuries. Due to the distance to the hospital from this location and also the Friday afternoon traffic slowdowns, it was determined that transporting the child via Life Flight helicopter was an appropriate option. A landing zone was established in a field next door to the house while paramedics from Portland Fire and AMR continued to treat the boys injuries. He was flown to Emmanuel Hospital in critical condition.

Regionally, we tend to see an influx of these types of incidents every year in the spring time. They mostly occur in children from two to six with the younger ones falling from a bed and the older ones usually climbing onto something near the window. Most of these can be easily prevented by installing some simple hardware to keep the windows from opening fully. Armed with a few pictures of your windows, a trip to your local hardware store, and some basic tools, most parents can easily install these device in a matter of minutes. There are also numerous websites that can be searched for additional information concerning these devices.

I apologize for the erroneous location of the call that I gave earlier, the corrected location is off of NW Ash St off of NW Skyline Blvd, not near the intersections of NW Ash St/NW Cornell.