PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — One moment, Jessica Chavez and Daniel Phelps were folding laundry in their kids’ room, and the next her 4-year-old son had fallen through a screen and onto a concrete patio.
Window Safety Tips from Legacy Health
— Keep play away from windows.
— Only allow windows to open 4 inches, and install window stops and/or window guards that can be removed by an adult in an emergency.
— Lock windows when not in use.
— Open windows from the top and use a window stop for the bottom.
— Prevent climbing. Keep furniture and anything a child can climb on away from windows.
— Actively watch children near windows.
— For more information, visit StopAt4
Jayk Haug suffered a fracture around his eye, a concussion, scrapes and bruises when he fell from a 2nd-story window at the Country Run Apartments in Kelso on Monday afternoon. The boy was airlifted to Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel and is recovering.
Chavez said she was sitting on her younger boy’s bed and Jayk was near the window.
“Jayk climbed up on the window sill and I was getting ready to tell him to get down from there,” Phelps told KOIN 6 News. “Well, he lost his balance and fell out the window backwards knocking the screen out, and you just hear a loud thud.”
Phelps said he was outside “not even a second later” and held him in his arms. He saw a puddle of blood that “scared the hell out of me, and then he went into a seizure and that’s when I knew he was still alive.”
There was a chair near the window where Chavez and Phelps read books to the boys. But they’ve already moved the chair and put in a window stop so it can’t open more than 4 inches.
“We’re going to go buy special locks for the windows. I think all apartment complexes should have safety locks,” she told KOIN 6 News. “Screens don’t protect kids from falling out. They just stop bugs from getting in.”
Jayk will likely be moved out of the ICU soon, and Chavez said he was walking and talking.
“I thought that I had lost him,” she said. She credits a guardian angel for saving him and said Jayk is “pretty good actually, now.”
“We’re just happy he’s here,” Phelps said.
