Shocking footage of a man and a woman catching a three-year-old girl who fell from an apartment building in China has gone viral.
In the CCTV footage uploaded to Twitter by China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijiang, a man who was on his phone and a woman who was with him were seen rushing to the front of a building after looking up and noticing the child in peril.
The man briefly slipped as he tried to gain his footing in front of the building and then managed to successfully catch the little girl in his arms.
"Heroes among us," Lijiang tweeted along with the video.
The clip ended before revealing the window from where the baby fell, which was reportedly on the sixth floor of the building.
The toddler was released from Tongxiang Second People’s Hospital after being treated on Friday.
The man said he heard a loud bang coming from the top of the building that prompted him to look upward and see the girl tumbling from the window.
He called himself lucky for being at the right place and time, but locals called him a "hero" on Weibo–the Chinese social media platform.
Twitter users also praised the man, as well as the woman in the video, for their heroism.
Because the viral video did not show the complete trajectory of the fall, some were skeptical.
As it turns out, a YouTube clip posted by South China Morning Post revealed the girl had fallen onto a storefront awning–essentially breaking her fall–before she slid off of it and landed safely in the man's arms.
This would explain the amount of time the man had to get into position to catch the girl after seeing her falling.
Nevertheless, the child would have suffered major injury or not have survived at all had it not been for the good Samaritans' quick response.
While it is unclear how the child found herself on the other side of the window, the incident also served as an important reminder for parents to install child safety features in their homes.
In the United States, accidental injury is the leading cause of death in children and young adults. Per the CDC, about 12,000 children and young adults ages 1 to 19 die from accidental injuries annually.
