Kurla teenager survives fall from 14th floor window

13-year-old Sakhira Sheikh survived a fall from the 14th floor of her home in Mumbai, India. She was saved by a tree branch and a tin roof and sustained no external injuries. Doctors are monitoring her closely for internal injuries.

When her family was shocked to the core, doctors could not believe what they were seeing was nothing short of a miracle, 13-year-old Sakhira Sheikh, though shaken, was behaving normal.

Kurla teenager survives fall from 14th floor window

This was the scene after the teenager fell from the window of her 14th floor home at Nehru Nagar in Kurla in the early hours of Tuesday. Luckily, two things broke her fall – a tree branch and a tin roof and prevented her from getting any external injuries.

Around 12.30 am she was in the living room playing with the gifts she had received on her birthday, December 10, while her parents and elder siblings were in the hall watching television. According to her parents, Sakhira went to the window of the living room as something outside caught her attention but lost her balance and fell off it.

Her family members, a few metres away, heard a thumping noise. “First we thought it was the sound of a dumper truck passing by,” said her father Ismail Sheikh, a fruit merchant.

When the commotion from the basement of their building reached their floor, they went down to check and found Sakhira on the ground with many people fussing over her. But to their surprise, the family saw that the girl was able to sit upright and look at them, although she was visibly shaken.

They immediately rushed her to a private hospital nearby where doctors were scared on hearing that she had a fall from such a height and advised the family to visit a government hospital, Ismail said. She was then taken to Sion hospital.

“Doctors here were also surprised to find that she seemed unhurt. However, they told us they would like to keep a very close eye on her health at least for the next 24 hours to rule out the chance of any internal injuries,” her father said.

When HT met the family at Sion hospital, Sakhira was still a bit shocked though she had no visible signs of surviving such a big fall on her body. She kept apologising to her father for being careless.

Recounting what is sure to become one of the most memorable moments of her life, she said, “I don’t even remember why I went near the window. When I fell, I was very scared. I first felt something other than air when I brushed with the foliage of a tree that has branches extending to the second floor of our building.”

This tree broke her fall, which was the first stroke of luck for the teenager. The second was falling on the tin roof of the ground floor shop. The roof, though it eventually gave in, further reduced the speed of the fall. That ensured the girl was physically unharmed.

While Sakhira herself could not speak much, her father’s face was a mix of joy and anxiety. Still worried about how things would go in the next few hours, he said, “All I now want for her is to grow up into a brave, independent woman. She is already smart and is good in academics. I am sure she will have an amazing life.”