Chinese toddler, presumed dead after falling from 25th floor, recovers

Beijing: A one-year-old boy who was presumed dead after having fallen from a multi-storeyed building has now regained consciousness and is stable, a media report said on Friday. The baby boy, Yuan Yuan, has regained consciousness and is in stable condition after medical treatment, but he is very weak and will have an operation soon, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted hospital doctors and the baby's father Li Shengzhong as saying.

In an incident that shocked the nation, the baby was allegedly beaten up by a ten-year-old girl in China's Chongqing City, in a fit of rage and he later fell from 25th floor but has now regained consciousness and is "temporarily in a stable condition", the report said.

The girl surnamed Li, a fifth-grade student, held Yuan inside an elevator on November 25 in a residential building in Changshou District, and beat him up, police said. The incident happened when Yuan grandmother, who while taking him moved her stroller out of the elevator, when the door closed behind her, leaving the toddler inside with Li who had just entered, the police said. Video footage from the monitoring camera inside the elevator showed Li assaulting Yuan.

She held him for a while and threw him to the floor and later kicked the baby several times before throwing him out of the elevator and took him to her home on the 25th floor and continued to beat him up. She later put the baby on the guardrail of the balcony to play with him during which Yuan fell down.

Li later lied to the baby boy's grandmother when she came looking for him, saying that he was taken away by someone else. As the grandmother was checking the monitoring video at the community guard's office, Li found Yuan Yuan lying in the shrubbery near the building and moved him to an alley seven to eight meters away. She then returned home alone.

Li's parents who are workers of a chemical company were not in the home when the tragedy occurred. The motive of Li is unclear, Xinhua report said. As Li is only ten years old, she will not be detained with a criminal charge, police said.

On Wednesday, Yuan Yuan's parents filed a civil action to the Changshou District Court. Li's family has paid 78,000 yuan ($ 12,700) so far for medical treatment of the boy. Local government has provided aid to the boy and his family. The case shocked the nation and is currently one of the most talked about topics on the web, with many praying for the recovery of the boy.