We're entering the "open windows" season here in the states, so I'm posting this both because it's an amazing story, and as a cautionary for all us moms to be aware of. Get those window guards out now.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=682657&category=ALBANY&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=4/22/2008
Heaven-sent delivery
Postal carrier arrives at house just in time to stop baby's fall
By [b]TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008[/b]
ALBANY -- When a baby fell from a second-story window Monday, Lisa Harrell should not have been there to catch her.
Normally, the longtime letter carrier doesn't get to 306 Second St. until about 2 p.m. But on Monday, Harrell had an Express Mail package to be delivered to the address before noon.
So at 11 a.m., Harrell walked to the home's door and saw a 1-year-old girl in the second-story window above her head. She rang the doorbells to both the upstairs and downstairs apartments, not knowing which tenant the package was for.
A moment later, she felt something strike her shoulder and instinctively put out her arms.
"I noticed the upstairs window open halfway," she said. "The baby fell right into my arms. Everything happened so quick."
The baby was screaming as she fell, Harrell said, and afterward. But paramedics from the Albany Fire Department examined her and found no visible injuries.
"Everything was fine," said James Miller, a spokesman for the city's Department of Public Safety. "She was OK."
Albany Postmaster David Yanni said it was stunning because Harrell normally would not have been on the concrete steps at that hour.
"It wasn't her normal time to be there," he said. "The stars were aligned for that baby today."
Police said the baby's mother, Brenda Morales, ran outside, grabbed her child from Harrell and ran up the street to her mother's house.
She did pause to say thank you, Harrell said. She told the woman she was lucky.
"I said, 'You should never had had that window open. Your baby could be dead,' " Harrell said. "Thank God the baby was OK."
Harrell, 42, has worked for the Postal Service for almost 14 years. She said she has never had an experience like the one she had Monday.
"I was pretty shaken up. I couldn't finish the route," she said Monday evening. "I feel better now."
Children & Family Services detectives waited at the house until the mother and child returned at 12:20 p.m.
According to police, Morales told detectives she was upstairs in the room with her baby and had put the child on the bed, which was up against the window. She had her back turned when the baby apparently crawled through the opening in the window.
The mother said she was so startled by what happened that she grabbed her child from the postal worker and ran to her mother's house up the street, police said.
Officers did not file charges against Morales, but Albany County Child Protective Services was notified.
Morales could not be reached for comment Monday.
Yanni said the Postal Service is proud of Harrell. "She's certainly a real hero," he said.
But the letter carrier wasn't ready to embrace that word.
"A hero? No. I was in the right place at the right time," she said. "God was there for me and the baby."
Tim O'Brien can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at tobrien@timesunion.com.
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