Rescuers Break into Home To Save Little Girl Spotted on Window Ledge After Being Left Home Alone
Life is full of circumstances you can’t prepare for, and a lot of those scenarios involve children. Kids don’t quite understand how the world works yet, which is part of what makes them both adorable and vulnerable.
For Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy Ben Sanchez, it was definitely the vulnerable end of the spectrum that presented itself last week.
A couple in Canyon Country, California, had left their child home alone on March 6. Left to her own devices, the girl scrambled up onto the ledge of the window, two stories above the asphalt.
She leaned against the screen, causing it to bow, not realizing how much potential danger she was in. Thankfully, neighbors spotted her and called the authorities, who arrived at around 1:45 p.m.
Deputy Sanchez told Liftable, a section of The Western Journal, that when he arrived on the scene and waited under the window, he was worried about two things: keeping the girl safe and getting into the apartment.
“The first thing I thought about was trying to get into the apartment AND keep her safe,” he said.
The tricky part was “trying to figure out how to catch her with the screen coming down and hoping she didn’t get caught up in the (cords) and accidentally hang herself.”
“After we got her out safely and made sure she was taken care of my focus turned to locating her parents and apprehending them,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez also told Liftable that he tried to get her to open the door for them and asked her where her parents were, but she did not respond.
Other deputies urged the girl to “go sit on your bed” and “go to your bed” to try to get her out of harm’s way, but the video shows that she continued to hold her precarious position.
One local told KCBS-TV that the fire department showed up and was about to use a ladder to rescue the child just as authorities managed to gain access to the apartment.
“And he pulled the kid away from the screen and they couldn’t figure out where the mother was,” the local said.
This particular neighbor also said that he’d experienced the hazards of those flimsy screens firsthand when his dog and hamster fell out of the window.
According to another neighbor, this wasn’t the first time the girl had gotten herself into that particular situation. Charla Marshall told WLBT that the same thing had happened a few months ago.
“I just told her to get down, ‘Lay down baby. Mommy and daddy think you’re asleep, lay down,'” she said.
UPDATE: The 28-year-old mother of a small child who was left home alone at Isabella Pkwy apt. and rescued by SCV Sheriff’s deputies and LA Co Fire Dept. has been arrested on child endangerment charges. Suspect Lucia Romero of Canyon Country is in custody, with bail set at $100K. pic.twitter.com/EIKa2qlyUo
— SCV Sheriff (@SCVSHERIFF) March 7, 2019
Most locals were appalled at the predicament, and neighbor Robert Sienfuegos said, “There’s no reason or excuse to have a child that young to stay by themselves inside of a house.”
The girls’ parents have since been arrested for child endangerment and their respective bails have been set at $100,000.
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