As Temperatures Rise, So Do Number Of Children Falling From Windows
HUNTINGTON BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Little-known fact: When temperatures soar, so do the numbers of children who accidentally fall from windows.
CBS 2's Michele Gile on Wednesday spoke to a 10-year-old who fell two weeks ago after he took out the screen on his bedroom window.
Donovan Hogg won't ever make that mistake again. He took out his screen to climb onto the ledge outside his bedroom window.
"My head was there, and I was sitting right there," he says. And then he wasn't.
Donovan was playing in his room before dinner. He'd never taken the screen out before or dared to go out on the ledge before, but for some reason, this day was different.
When his mom heard screams coming from the driveway, she knew right away her son had fallen.
Just a few minutes earlier, Donovan was reading on his bed. The only way he could have made it downstairs with out her seeing him was the wrong way. He dropped 13 feet to the concrete below.
"Right away. Panic. Opened the door came outside and saw him laying there with a lot of blood coming from his head and dripping down his face ... and very scary," says Adreianne Hogg.
The Huntington Beach boy is the eighth child this year to be rushed to Children's Hospital of Orange County after falling out a window.
"Scary," says Donovan. "Very scary."
With this hot weather, parents are being warned to crack windows no more than four inches and move all furniture away so kids can't climb
up to the window sill.
Asked where he fell, Donovan points out "Somewhere over here. Somewhere near here."
Donovan told Gile he slipped as he tried to get back into his room but doesn't remember slamming to the ground.
He broke his thumb, has a hairline fracture on his hip and needed stitches on his forehead.
"I'm feeling glad I can go back to school, and I can walk," Donovan said.
Trauma doctors at the hospital reminded Gile to tell parents to window screens are designed to keep bugs out, not keep kids in.