Miracle catch saves girl
Published: August 11, 2005
A Brooklyn girl miraculously landed in the arms of a good Samaritan after tumbling from the roof of a three-story building yesterday, police said.
“I’m just so glad he reacted and wasn’t one of the people that just sat there and looked,” said the girl’s relieved aunt, Vanessa Cox, 30.
The drama unfolded after 6-year-old Karizma Cox had checked out of the Initial Steps Child Development Center in Flatbush for the day with her grandmother.
Karizma said she had to go back in to get something and then ventured alone to the rooftop play area where she had left her cookies, her family and officials said.
But the door to the roof locked behind her and no one heard her cries for help. So Karizma crawled onto the roof of an adjoining building and then tried to climb down the side - just as Mohammed Azaze Balde turned onto Glenwood Road to pick up some Chinese food.
“I saw her and I said to myself, I have to save her life,” said Balde, 25, an immigrant from Guinea in West Africa. “I decided that I couldn’t wait.”
As horrified onlookers begged the girl to hold on, Balde raced up the fire escape and made it to the second floor just as Karizma lost her grip.
The little girl slammed her stomach into the fire escape but Balde managed to catch her in his arms.
“I knew if I wasted any time, it was going to be dangerous,” he said.
Karizma was already talking and laughing at Kings County Hospital, where she was staying overnight for observation.
But relatives were stymied as to how the youngster made it to the rooftop play area alone.
The Health Department is investigating, a spokesman said.
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