Toddler Survives Fall From 12th-Story Balcony Thanks To ‘Hero’ Delivery Driver

A delivery driver in Vietnam is being called a hero after he miraculously caught a toddler who fell from a 12th-floor balcony.

Nguyen Ngoc Manh, 31, was sitting his truck waiting to deliver a package to a Hanoi high-rise complex Sunday when he heard a child crying and a woman screaming overhead. He told the Anninhthudo news organization, per the Evening Standard, that he initially brushed off the commotion as just a kid having a tantrum.

But when Manh noticed people on the street panicked and shouting, he rolled down his window and looked up. To his horror he saw a little girl dangling 164-feet in the air, VN Express International reported.

The heart-stopping moment was captured on video and shared on social media.

Manh, a father himself, immediately sprang from his truck. Trying to gauge where the girl may land, he climbed a 6-foot wall between where he was stopped 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,” Manh told VN Express. “I made it, but couldn’t stand firmly, as the roof was crooked.” 

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 wasn’t crying, he said, 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, where doctors treated her for a dislocated hip, but said she had no other injuries. Manh sprained his arm catching her. 

Many on social media hailed Manh as a hero, but he told VN Express he doesn’t care for the label. He said he just wants to “do good.”

He told Anninhthudo he didn’t feel any kind of comfort in his lifesaving effort until he returned home to hug his own daughter, who is about the same age as the girl he saved, according to the Evening Standard.