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Investigative Committee concerned about frequent cases of children’s death and injuries after falling from windows

With warm weather setting in, the incidents when children fall from windows in high-rise buildings became more frequent. The babies climb windowsills in search of cool wind and fall.

Today Moscow main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under article 109 of the RF Penal Code (reckless homicide) after a small baby died. In the evening on 31 July 2014, in a house on Marshal Savitsky street a mother left her baby born in 2013 in a room, took away the handles from windows, but forgot that one of them was open. The baby fell from the window and died.

Over the past month in 17 regions of Russia over 20 minors got hurt by falling from windows. In most cases they are children aged between 1 and 4 years, who see an open window, climb the windowsill using different pieces of furniture and most often leaning on a mosquito net, then fall out the window with it.

Those were the circumstances when on 14 July 2014, a child was taken to hospital in Volgograd with a head injury. It was found during a check that the girl was injured after falling out a window on the third floor. While their mother was in the kitchen, the twin girls were playing in a room. At one point one of them climbed a windowsill, leaned over a mosquito net and fell out. The day before that, in Voronezh, in similar circumstances a boy fell from a window in a hostel and on 17 July 2014 in the town of Onegi, Arkhangelsk Region a child fell from a balcony on the third flood.

In some region of Russia such incidents happen with scary regularity. For example, 11 incidents have been registered in Perm since May 2014, 1 child died, 10 sustained severe injuries. Last year the Kama region saw 34 incidents. This year the Vladimir Region has registered 10 incidents, 11 falls have been registered in the Moscow Region since warm weather came in.

To prevent this sad statistic going up and to protect health and lives of children the Investigative Committee

is addressing all parents to keep a watchful eye on their children, not to leave them alone in the apartments with open windows. To secure their own children, parents must place the furniture in such a way that a child is not able to climb a windowsill or a brink of a non-glazed balcony and to take care of special latches, which won’t let a child open a window. Also don’t rely on fly screens, which produce a fake illusion of closed windows. These simple measures and parents’ constant vigilance will help to save a child’s life.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                    V.I. Markin