A 2-year-old girl died after falling from a fifth-floor window in her Mott Haven, Bronx apartment on Tuesday night. The child, Julia Cante Wilcox-Polanco, was reportedly playing with the accordion divider of a window air conditioning unit when she fell. Her father, Chayanne Polanco, 36, stated that his daughter was a "super energetic" and "bubbly" child who enjoyed climbing.
"She was a very bubbly kid," Polanco said. "If she was alive right now, she will be running back and forth from the apartment, trying to climb all things. And then, she’ll just look at me and raise her arms up and [say] she wants ‘uppies.’"
Polanco, who is studying to become an electrician, was at tech school when the incident occurred around 10:45 p.m. Julia's mother was home but had briefly stepped into another room.
"This is what gets me mad, because it’s not like the area where she usually was," Polanco said of his daughter's actions. "She normally would just run around it. It was the first time she was, like, curious about that accordion, and somehow…she got it open, and she pushed it right out."
Julia landed in the alleyway below the apartment building on East 138th Street. She was transported to Harlem Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. Police have stated that no criminality is suspected in the toddler's fatal fall.
"All it takes is a split second," Polanco reflected. "There was nothing malicious."
He described Julia as his "miracle child" and his "first and only child."