Boy dies after falling from apartment window

An Ottawa Police Service cruiser is parked outside an apartment tower at 1240 Donald St. on Sunday. A young boy was rushed to hospital earlier in the afternoon after falling out a window. (Inès Ali-Khan/Radio-Canada)

Ottawa police say a three-year-old boy has died after falling from the window of a Gloucester apartment building Sunday afternoon.

The incident happened at 1240 Donald St., police told Radio-Canada.

Paramedics said they got a call around 1 p.m. that a child had fallen from the window.

The boy's vital signs were absent when first responders arrived, the paramedic service said. They began trying to resuscitate him and took him to CHEO, eastern Ontario's children's hospital.

He was still in cardiac arrest with no vital signs when they arrived at the hospital, paramedics said.

Police confirmed early Sunday evening that the boy had died.

First responders 'tried their best'

While it's unconfirmed how far the boy fell, the paramedic service said there was a missing screen on one window on the building's 16th floor.

A spokesperson for Q residential, which operates the building, told CBC the child lived in a unit on the building's 18th floor.

The building does not have a 13th floor and some residents who spoke to CBC said the ground floor is labelled as the second floor.

Abir El Abed lives on the third floor. When she heard a sudden noise, she said she rushed to her balcony to see what happened.

"There was a kid lying on the [ground]. The screen was waving in the sky [and slowly falling]. And after it landed, I grabbed my phone inside and called 911."

While first responders got there incredibly quickly, there was little they could do, she said.

"They came, they tried their best — but he was gone."