The 15-month-old toddler who fell from a Mission window on Wednesday afternoon has died, according to the medical examiner’s office. A neighbor said the child died shortly after the fall, and three online fundraisers had been set up to support the family.
Paramedics arrived at the scene at 2315 Mission St. and found Ulises Gonzalez Rodriguez in his mother’s arms, suffering from injuries “consistent with a fall,” said Capt. Justin Schorr, a spokesperson with the San Francisco Fire Department.
Gonzalez was immediately transported to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, but he died the same day, according to the account on the online fundraisers. Ulises was described in one as “The sweetest boy, he was 15 months old and had the best personality. He loved to play with his parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.”
Neither of the fundraisers’ owners responded to requests for comment; one said she was a family friend, and another is a local youth-nonprofit director. Mission Local could not reach the child’s mother.
Russell Gourneau, a neighbor who has lived in the same building for the last 25 years and helped rescue the child, said that on the afternoon of the incident, he heard screams coming from the third floor where Gonzalez lived with his mother. He immediately ran up to the apartment and saw the mother on the phone with the police.
“She was screaming. She said her baby had fallen from the third floor and she asked me to help her rescue her baby,” said Gourneau, who described the scene: The little boy fell three stories from a window and landed in a 14-inch gap between their building and the building next door, which is the headquarters of the Mission Economic and Development Agency.
Gourneau said he ran down to the backyard with the mother, and saw the boy lying on the ground, but a fence prevented them from entering the gap between the two buildings. The mother desperately yelled for help, he said.
After a couple of tries using a hammer, Gourneau finally unscrewed a corner of the fence and created a space big enough for the mother to crawl through and hand the child to him.
“The boy cried for a little bit,” said Gourneau with teary eyes. Paramedics were soon on the scene, he said.
Gourneau said the mother and child had been living at the building for only a couple of months. He said they were both nice and clean neighbors.
“I’m still recovering from everything that happened. It’s really sad,” said Gourneau while seated outside of the bar located next to his building. “I haven’t seen the mom around. She hasn’t been back since the day of the accident.”
In a statement to Mission Local, the police department said Child Protective Services has been notified, and that it will conduct its own investigation.
The incident is under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message SFPD. You may remain anonymous.
If there’s a chance someone has a spinal injury or other internal injuries, please never move them unless it cannot be avoided. Wait for the paramedics.
Unfortunately, that understanding is bundled right together with the knowledge of how to keep your kids from falling out of a window. Poor baby.
how awful