A truck driver in Vietnam has become a viral hero after saving a toddler who fell from a 12th-floor balcony in Hanoi.
HANOI,Vietnam- A toddler accidentally fell Sunday from the 12th floor balcony of a high-rise complex in Hanoi, Vietnam, when a truck driver who was parked near the building heard a child crying and a woman screaming overhead.
Nguyen Ngoc Manh, 31, said he noticed people on the street panicked and shouting, he rolled down his window and looked up when he saw the little girl dangling 164 feet in the air.
Manh, a father himself, sprang from his truck, gauged where the girl might land and climbed a 6-foot wall between where he was parked and the apartment complex.
“I scaled the wall and saw that she could fall onto the metallic roof of the house used to store electric generators for the complex, so I tried to climb on top of it. I made it but couldn’t stand firmly as the roof was crooked,” he narrated.
As the girl lost her grip on the balcony railing and plummeted, Manh slipped. But he flung himself forward and, astoundingly, caught the toddler.
She was not crying, but blood was dripping from her mouth. She looked so much like my child at home. I was so confused, only able to tell her, ‘Please, please, I’m here now,’” Manh told VN Express International.
The little girl was taken to a hospital for treatment of a dislocated hip, but she had no injuries. Manh sprained his arm from catching her.
Social media hailed Manh as a hero, but he told VN Express he does not care for the label. He said he just wants to “do good.”
On reaching his home, he hugged his own daughter, who is about the same age as the girl he saved. (RdlC)