A hero.
A man in Kazakhstan is being hailed a hero after he saved a three year old girl when she almost fell out of an eighth-floor window.
The toddler was using cushions and toys to climb to the window ledge when she slipped and was left hanging from the window by her finger tips.
According to reports, she had been left home alone in the capital of Nur-Sultan as her mum had gone out shopping.
A crowd gathered to watch as she clung to the edge, looking at the scene in horror, when Sabit Shontakbaev, 37, and a friend were on their way to work when they spotted the incident.
Sabit rushed into the building and knocked down the door of the apartment below the toddler’s window.
Making his way to the window, he attempted to rescue the girl.
Sabit told Metro.co.uk: “I did not have a safety harness so my friend held my legs.
“At that moment I didn’t think about anything, I just wanted to help the child.”
Leaning out and grabbing the girl’s legs, he pulled her down and cradled her in his arms before passing her back to his friend through the open window.
This man – from Kazakhstan – is a hero. Neighbour rescued a 3-year-old girl hanging out of a window. Could have ended very differently mind you pic.twitter.com/v7C02TY8zN
— D.Emery (@DemeryUK) May 11, 2022
He also noted that he didn’t see her parents and went straight to work after, before she saw people on social media calling him a hero.
Saying what he did shouldn’t be considered heroic, Sabit said he only tried to lend a helping hand.
The father of four has now been awarded a medal by the city’s deputy emergency minister and local media reports he will be given a three-bedroom apartment and television.
He is currently living alone in Nur-Sultan and sending money home to his family in Kyzylorda, but now his three daughters and son can join him in the city.
Emergency services had been called to the scene yesterday at 10.21am after reports of the child hanging from the window, but Sabit thankfully got there first.
Kazakh’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said in a statement: “Subdivisions of the Department of Emergency Situations of the city of Nur-Sultan, consisting of 7 personnel and two vehicles, were promptly sent to the scene.
“By the time of arrival, it was established that a man had saved the child dangling from the window on the eighth floor.
“No-one was with the girl, born in 2019.
“Fortunately, our hero Shontakbaev Sabit, born in 1985, seeing the hanging, crying child, without hesitation and risking his own life, took emergency action and literally caught and saved the little girl’s life in a matter of seconds.”
