This is the nail-biting moment a three-year-old girl teeters over a 150-foot drop as she balances on an apartment block window ledge while her mother was at a nightclub.
The toddler – not named by local media in Kaspiisk, Russia – was spotted by horrified passersby as she balanced on the narrow sill.
Video footage of the drama first surfaced on the Telegram instant messaging service showing the girl apparently unaware of the danger she was in.
As she swings her arms around outside her family’s ninth-storey apartment she is just one slip away from tragedy.
Meanwhile, neighbours from the floor below can be seen desperately trying to persuade her to go back inside.
Others hammered on the apartment door and begged police to knock it down, reported local media.
Down in the courtyard, some had piled up layers of blankets to try to cushion her fall if she lost her balance.
A police spokesman told local media: “The police officers and residents who had gathered by that time, were divided into two groups.
“Some tried to open the door without scaring the child, while others stood with thick blankets below, under the window.”
But when police tried to get into the girl’s apartment to pull her back in they found her older sister had been there all the time.
The police said that she had not answered the door because she was afraid to let strangers into the apartment.
Dagestan Police said in a statement obtained by CEN: “A criminal case has been initiated against a local resident suspected of leaving a minor child in danger.
“According to the investigation, on 14th August, 2023, at about 2:30am, the suspect, after putting her four-year-old daughter to bed in an apartment at house number 71, left with her sister for the city of Makhachkala to visit a nightclub.
“At about 5am, the juvenile woke up and did not find her mother in the house, being in a helpless state, not realizing the danger, she climbed onto the open window of the apartment located on the ninth floor and went out to the outer window sill, where she stayed for about half an hour until she was rescued by neighbours and arriving law enforcement officers.”
