Man describes horrific moment when his friends' three-year-old son fell from Sydney unit window – ARJUN RAMACHANDRAN

The distraught tenant of a Sydney apartment has described the horrific moment his friends’ three-year-old son fell from the window of their third-floor unit and died.

Iman Akter Mostafa fell 15 metres from the unit in Warialda Street, Kogarah, shortly before 7pm yesterday. He died in hospital from severe head injuries, police said.

Iman and his family, from Canterbury, had been visiting Sazzad Afaz and his wife, Rubina Akter, as she was pregnant, Mr Afaz said.

The two families had been enjoying each other’s company for a number of hours – Iman and the hosts’ daughter Rushmila, 3, were playing in a bedroom, while the adults chatted in the lounge room – when the tragedy occurred.

“We were all sitting down in front of the TV and talking [and] within 30 seconds we heard my daughter say: ‘Iman has fallen down!’ ” Mr Afaz said.

“[After running into the bedroom] we saw Iman was not there.”

Mr Afaz and Mr Mostafa ran down three flights of stairs to the unit’s car park.

“I found Iman on the floor … too much bleeding,” he said. The flyscreen through which he had fallen was about a metre away.

“We put [Iman] in my friend’s car and went to [nearby Kogarah] hospital. But after half an hour the doctor declared Iman dead.”

Iman was the couple’s first son, Mr Afaz said. The pair had an older daughter.

“They’re very upset at this moment, I don’t know if they can control it or not,” he said.

“‘I can’t explain the situation at the moment. Yesterday they were really so sad.”

As Mr Afaz spoke, Mrs Afaz sat sobbing in the lounge room while Rushmila slept.

“My wife is too stressed, she’s pregnant,” he said.

“The doctor yesterday tried to find a heartbeat [for the baby] … he couldn’t … too much stress.”

Complained a number of times

In the wake of the tragedy, Mr Afaz called for the Government to enforce higher safety standards on real-estate agents and unit landlords.

He said he had complained a number of times about the state of the windows.

“There’s no locks, nothing. If we need to close the window we just close the glass,” he said, standing alongside the window through which Iman fell.

He pointed to the “loose and thin” flyscreen, which was still unattached from the window. It had been brought back into the bedroom by police, after it was found alongside Iman’s body in the car park last night.

“The flyscreen condition is not good … [the landlords] fixed the one in the other room but this one is still bad,” he said.

Until higher standards were applied, a tragedy like the one that affected his friend’s family last night could happen to anybody, Mr Afaz said.

“It’s very easy. Last night I realise that.”

In recent times there have been a string of child deaths or injuries from window falls, prompting safety experts to call for homes and flats in Sydney to be fitted with window locks or barriers.

A five-year audit of trauma cases at the Sydney Children’s Hospital released last December found that, while serious injuries for children had declined overall, falls from windows had risen.

Twenty-three children were admitted to hospital with injuries from falls in the past five years, with 78 per cent falling through flyscreens.

In February, a five-year-old died after falling eight metres from a bathroom window in Caringbah.

In January, a four-year-old boy suffered a broken leg when he fell from a second-storey window in Liverpool.

The director of trauma at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Danny Cass, has written to the State Government urging window locks and barriers to be compulsory in new homes.

At least three children have died in NSW in the past few years from window falls.

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