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SARATOGA SPRINGS — A Saratoga Springs family considered their son's recovery a miracle after he fell 16 feet from a second-story window onto concrete below.
"He shouldn't be OK," said Jeanelle Andersen. "It's just a miracle that he's alive, that he's himself and that he's doing so well."
On April 8, while mom was in the kitchen, she heard commotion coming from her backyard.
"His brothers were playing outside and I could hear that [Matthew] had gone to his room and they were talking through the window," Andersen said. "Then I heard a scream and the tone of his brother's scream was bloodcurdling."
Andersen rushed outside to find her 5-year-old son Matthew on the concrete patio, moaning in pain. She quickly called 911 and within minutes, paramedics arrived.
"I think he just put too much weight on the screen and he fell out," she said.
Matthew was flown to Primary Children's Hospital where doctors found several fractures.
"He fractured his collar bone, he fractured his eye in a few places and then he fractured his skull," Andersen said.
Scans also revealed bleeding in his brain, but miraculously, he started to heal, and within five days, was sent home to recover.
"It's just a miracle that he's alive, that he's himself and that he's doing so well!"
— Ashley Moser (@AshleyMoser) April 24, 2021
This sweet 5-year-old is recovering after falling from a second story window.
At 10:00, the warning from his parents and what they encourage all of us to buy to make our windows safer @KSL5TVpic.twitter.com/NgaIlhTkhG
The family hoped their experience would encourage others to secure all second-story windows with safety devices.
"I am hoping that the word spreading of his miracle really will encourage people to just buy some kind of window protection. It's pretty simple," Andersen said. "We bought sliding window locks for all of our windows and it's so easy. You can just screw it on and then the kids can only open the window a few inches."
Family and friends have set up a GoFundMe account to help out with Matthew's medical expenses.
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