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3-year-old boy falls to death from 13th floor of Nagoya apartment

25 Comments

Police said Sunday that a 3-year-old boy died Saturday night after falling from the 13th floor of the apartment building where he lived in Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya.

According to police, another resident of the 14-story condominium heard a loud noise at about 9:50 p.m. and saw the body of the boy lying in the building parking lot.

Police said the boy was home with his grandmother at the time. His parents had gone out. The grandmother told police that she went to clean the bathroom and left the boy watching a DVD. When she returned, the boy had gone.

Police said the boy apparently climbed over a 1.2-meter balcony railing.

© News reports

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25 Comments
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I`m sure he did.

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Climbed over the 1.2m balcony that is. Something fishy.

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TV's are not babysitters.

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Again and again we hear of children falling to their death from balconies in Japan. It leaves a strange sensation of horror because whenever something else causes death or injury in Japan it is attended to. Instead... it just keeps on happening, come on, someone do something.

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Pretty hard for a 3-year-old to climb over a 1.2 meter balcony railing. Either he was very tall and strong for his age or there was something for him to crawl up onto. Poor boy. I wish other parents would start learning from these horrible tragedies.

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Knowing Japanese apartments and balconies I reckon there were many boxes, etc stuff to climb up on = easy to get a good view and fall off.

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Hmmm? 3 years old, 1.2m balcony railing, grandmother cleaning bathroom? It is impossible for a 3y/o to climb over a 1.2m railing without the aid of a chair or similar, which leaves too many questions. Was there something stupidly placed on the balcony that the kid could climb on? Was this three year old 'superboy' and carried a chair onto the balcony? Why was the door leading to the balcony not locked? A tragedy? Yes! An accident? No way! Just another dead kid as a result of parental stupidity. RIP little fella.

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Let me guess... there was clutter on the balcony that the boy could climb up and then over the railing. What's this now? 4 times in one week?

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3rd kid to have fallen out of an apartment this week. Fishy

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The strange thing about JT and Japan is that when a crime or a circumstance is reported there seem to be a trend of the same thing happening after the first report. Weird.

Kids are active at the age 3 and likes to explore their environment. Japanese parents and the family member watching the child needs to be more aware of what room/window may have a potential threat to the safety of the child and prevent the child from access the room(s) or window. Also, any furniture that can be a hazard to a small child should be removed to a different location that would not cause harm to the child.

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Not that strange really.

Any news-outlet likes to report similar incidents for a period of time as it keeps the readers/viewers interested till the next big story/attraction comes along.

Happens all over the globe, nature of the news business.

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what is it with this country, falling over balcony,s?????? And most of them are children.... Maybe they should install cctv cameras to find out the real truth..

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My boy could have easily climbed a 1.2 metre balcony railing when he was three! and he's not big at all, just a climber. He could quite easily unlock doors at three years old as well. Best to not play the blame game on this one, the grandma and the parents are going through eneogh at the moment!! And you can be assured that they will be asking the (what if) question for the rest of thier lives-no need to fuel the fire. RIP Little one.

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Too much info left out of the article. Too many comments jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. RIP, little one.

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My 3 year old is exactly the same. Japanese balcony doors can be locked but the locks are often low down and easy to manipulate. You can buy locks and fix them higher up but they are really flimsy and easily broken with a sharp tug on the door, even by a 3 year old. And when the weather is warm the doors are often open anyway.

Unfortunately the balcony is often the only place where you can store stuff.

So what to do? We have drummed into our kids that they NEVER EVER - literally on pain of death - go out on the balcony without us. At the moment, it is OK anyway - we are on the 3rd floor with a wide ledge just underneath us so worst case scenario we have to climb down and get them, but we will shortly be moving to the 17th floor, and then the training we have instilled in them will be worth it.

But it is still a scary thought, and absolutely NO substitute for not being supervised in the first place.

I also have to wonder what the grandma is doing cleaning the bathroom at nearly 10pm at night? My MIL does it at 5am too!!! Doesn`t anyone do cleaning at normal times here???!

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suspicious accident

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My girl is 2 years and 9 months, and yes, she can move boxes and steps and stairs and put them on top of each other. She likes to watch Dora the explorer and tries to make her own adventures. And by the way, she can open balcony locks and close them again. My wife had this experience. Fortunately, we have a house with first and second floor, and the lock she opened and closed leads to outside. So my wife had to call me to come back home to open the house door with the key. In the time between our daughter opened the lock of the sliding door and my wife was able to enter. As Kirakira said, it is necessary to train the children so that their adventures don't lead to harm. Our 5 year old boy understands this, and he helps in teaching and taking care of the 2 younger children. This does not only apply to locks, but also to seat-belts, wearing helmets for bicycle, keeping small things from Baby and preventing Baby from reaching out for things, it should not have.

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When I was a baby I used to climb out of my crib and go crawling around the house. I guess there wasn't much mischief to get up to, since I'm still alive. But I do wish I had that much upper body strength NOW.

So yes, I believe it was just a horrible accident and that the child climbed up by himself. Never leave a kid alone with a DVD. It's been my experience with teaching kids that any kid under about 5 or 6 has the attention span of a gnat. Sure, they look engrossed in the TV, but turn around for three seconds and the kid will be trying to drink bleach or tear something up. It's a wonder more kids don't off themselves.

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God Bless his little sole

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This is just too sad and tragic. Prayers.

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yet another sad story. Hadn't I read about a kid falling out of a hotel window recently? Creating a kids-falling-to-their-death section might be easier. This happens way too much. You'd think there would be a national outcry and a more determined public effort? I don't get it

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Every week we have one of these. Sorry folks, it's NOT a tragic accident, it's a death due to negligence.

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The grandmother told police that she went to clean the bathroom and left the boy watching a DVD.

At 9:30pm????.....fantastic parenting...or should i say grandparenting. If you had of had this child in a routine (bed at 8pm after milk or whatever...OMG he was only 3) instead of allowing them to do what they want when they want and to fall asleep when they are totally exhausted, which is typical in this neck of the woods.....I'll stop there before i carry on in anger. RIP little one. It is a shame that a dimwit were left to look after you.

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Pethetic. Another week another fall out of a window story. If this keeps up, Japan's children population will continue to fall. (No pun)

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If I were a member of the Japanese government I would propose a law that states windows that can be opened on the second floor and higher MUST have bars installed, and that all balcony doors must be self-closing and automatically lock. A method (key lock?) to open the doors can be placed above the reach of an average toddler on both sides of the door - so no one gets locked out on the balcony.

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