Amazing Footage Captures Firefighter Catching Child Thrown from Balcony

This footage of a DeKalb County firefighter catching a child that’s thrown from the balcony is simply amazing. I’m not sure to be impressed and grateful to the fire captain or supremely upset at the mother. Let’s be fair, the building was on fire and they needed to get out. The child could have been squirming and thrashing in her grip, and she could have been losing hold of the kid, which means she wouldn’t really be throwing her, but more like yelling at the firefighter that her grip was slipping and she needed him to catch her child. Upon a further look though that kid was not moving. They weren’t thrashing and in all likelihood the mother could have wrapped one arm around the kid while making her way down the ladder. It’s hard to say without being there and seeing it first hand, but it does very much look like she just let her kid go and trusted the firefighter to catch them.

Many parents would be divided on this scene no doubt. Some might say that she was doing her best for her child, while others would question her intensely for simply dropping her kid off of a balcony and hoping that the guys below would catch them. Personally, I might play devil’s advocate just a bit and think that maybe she couldn’t balance correctly on the ladder and hold her kid at the same time. But then again the ladder wasn’t standing straight up, it wasn’t shaking at all, and the fire wasn’t blasting in their faces. She could have taken her time and gone down the right way, with her kid in her arm. The matter of her being strong enough could have come into play as well, since she might have felt her grip slipping. But again, really look at this video and then say that her grip is slipping. You might find yourself changing your tune very quickly.

She could have kept the kid in her arm and used the ladder for leverage. But maybe she was panicking and couldn’t think that far ahead. That one’s tough to dispute since a fire in your home isn’t a common occurrence, hopefully. She might have lost her bearings and her rational train of thought for a bit and believed that tossing her kid to the waiting firefighter would be a good idea. After all you can see in the clip that he is waiting with his arms out, ready to catch the kid. Like I said, it’s hard to tell, and that means it’s hard to condemn or applaud the mother for her actions. I do know that many parents could say whatever they want about this and could say that they would do something different. The truth is however that until you’re in that position you really don’t know how you’re going to react.

So don’t be so quick to condemn the woman, but instead be grateful that the firefighter was there to catch the kid. That’s the important part after all.