3-year-old girl dies after falling from Bronzeville building

By MARISSA PERLMAN, JERMONT TERRY

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A 3-year-old girl died after falling from the balcony of an apartment building in the Lake Meadows complex Bronzeville on Tuesday.

The incident happened around 11:45 a.m. in the 500 block of East 33rd Place at Lake Meadows.

Neighbors said they heard a child and a woman, who they believed to be her mother, scream from one of the apartments on the ninth floor, about 100 feet up. One of those neighbors was Siva Pramisetty.

“She was continuously screaming – helpless,” Pramisetty told CBS 2’s Jermont Terry. “No one was around to reach her. She was alone at the time.”

The child has been identified as Rufda Sahle by the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Pramisetty heard the yell from a mother in distress from a building over – and thought the woman was under attack.

“That the woman is under attack – something happened,” he said. “She was continuously screaming. I thought, we don’t know what was the reason for that.”

The continuous shriek echoed throughout the Lake Meadows apartment complex in Bronzeville. A 3-year-old had managed falling nine stories into the courtyard.

The girl’s mother rushed downstairs to find her child unconscious.

We are told a retired nurse in the complex, and the building engineer, tried doing CPR. But there was too much blood pouring out.

“And we saw blood in the hands and face,” Pramisetty said.

An ambulance rushed the child and mother to the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital. There, the pain deepened for the mother – who learned her daughter did not survive the 100-foot fall.

It was not clear if anyone besides the mother and the toddler were in the apartment at the time.

“You can’t blink too many times with a young toddler around,” a woman said.

CBS 2 also spoke with a man named Daniel, who lives on the same floor as the family. He didn’t want to show his face but said after hearing what happened, he was holding his daughter a little closer.

“That hurt me,” Daniel said. “That hurt me a lot because I’m with my daughter at that moment while asking security, I’m like, ‘Oh wait, what floor? That’s the floor I’m on.’ I knew exactly who he was talking about when he described her and that hurt because I’ve seen the same little girl all the time. She seems to be a sweetheart.”

Curtis Job, another neighbor, said, “It’s sad for a young girl and I hate that it happened … my prayers go out to the family.”

Residents wondered how a 3-year-old could fall to her death.

“You can’t blink too many times with a young toddler,” one woman said.

Police said they are investigating what led to the girl’s death.

Lake Meadows is the largest multi-family property in the Chicago area, spanning 72 acres. Last month, a New Jersey investor bought the apartment complex.

It will be the first time it has changed owners in more than 15 years.

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