Nappy saves falling toddler

A disposable nappy saved the life of an 18-month-old boy, breaking his fall from a third-floor window, officials in Brazil said today.

Caua Felipe Massaneiro survived the 30ft (10m) plunge because his nappy snagged on a security spike embedded in the concrete wall around his apartment building in the north-eastern city of Recife.

The toddler dangled from the spike for a moment, then “the diaper opened and the baby fell to the ground, but at a much slower speed”, a police officer said. “The diaper obviously lessened the impact of the fall and saved the baby’s life.”

“It was a miracle,” said the officer, who declined to be identified because she was not authorised to speak to the press. “He could also have been killed by one of the spikes.”

The child was treated for minor fractures at the Hospital Memorial Sao Jose, where spokesman Gilberto Tenorio said he was in a stable condition.

Police have launched an investigation to determine how the toddler fell out of the window and “if parental negligence was one of the causes”, the officer said.

The Folha de S Paulo newspaper quoted Caua’s father, 23-year-old Alexandre Cesar Massaneiro, as saying that his son climbed on to a sofa underneath the window he fell from – “something he had never done before”.

“It wasn’t the diaper that saved him,” Mr Massaneiro told the newspaper. “It was God.”