A 7-year-old Brooklyn girl is miraculously alive and well today after she fell from a third-floor window and was luckily caught by a sure-handed neighbor.
Cops said little Keyla McCree pushed out one of the accordion pieces that was holding a brand new air conditioner in a bedroom window of her Coney Island apartment and squeezed through the tiny opening before plummeting three stories.
“She’s fine,” said the girl’s worried mom, Shaleema McCree. “Not a scratch on her. The man caught her, thank God. It’s a miracle.”
McCree said she had taken a younger son to the bathroom when Kayla, an autistic girl who is small for her age, pushed her way through the window. Witnesses said Kayla did not fall right away, instead, she found herself perched on top of the unit, clueless to the danger she was in.
Moments later, several children alerted a neighbor, Steven St. Bernard, who rushed over without a second to spare.
“There were all these kids yelling,`the little girl, the little girl,’” said St. Bernard, a city bus driver. “I saw a little girl standing on the air conditioner. I said, `Let me get over to her in time. and I made it just in time.”
St. Bernard said the girl was “dancing and smiling” on the small unit, seemingly oblivious to the danger she was in. St. Bernard told her not to look down, and before he knew it, she was in free fall, tumbling right into his arms.
St. Bernard, 52, suffered a torn tendon in his bicep, a small sacrifice, he said for saving the young girl’s life.
He was treated and released from Coney Island Hospital, where the girl was also treated.