A Brazilian migrant living in Spain has been hailed as a hero after he risked his own life to rescue a young child who was dangling precariously off a second-floor balcony in the coastal city of Alicante.
Felipe David Souza, a 29-year-old painter, was preparing to head home on Wednesday when he heard screams outside the apartment where he was working. He glanced out and saw that a crowd of people had gathered on the street below.
Many were frantically pointing to the balcony next to where he was working. “I saw a little boy with half his body out,” Souza later told reporters.
The six-year-old child was seemingly frozen with fear on the railing of the balcony, one leg dangling over the metres-high drop. Below the crowd was desperately yelling at the young boy, telling him to climb back inside.
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Video filmed at the scene shows Souza swiftly swinging himself over the balcony railing, gripping the rail tightly as he began inching his way along the narrow ledge towards the child. “I did it without thinking,” he said.
The owner of a nearby cafe, Inés Su, was among those anxiously watching the rescue from below. Neighbours had called police and had begun hauling cushions out on the street in case the child fell, she told reporters. They watched as Souza appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. “We all had our hearts in our throats.”
High above, Souza worried that his approach would startle the child. “I was staring at the child to keep him calm, willing him not to move,” he said. “It’s a short distance but it felt so long.”
Video shows Souza calmly inching towards the child, gently grabbing his shirt as he guided the child back over the railing. A sigh of relief rippled through the crowd below as they burst into applause.
Souza said he had been thanked by the shocked parents who told him that they had dozed off when the child managed to open the window and slip out in a matter of seconds. “I’m really happy that the child is safe,” said Souza. Neighbours described the family as French tourists.
On Thursday, an official from Alicante’s city council told Souza that the municipality was planning to recognise his bravery in an award ceremony in November. “You risked your life to save that of the minor,” the councillor Julio Calero told him, describing Souza’s intervention as a “heroic act of immeasurable value”.
Souza has lived in Spain for nine years, he told the local news site Información.es. “Of course, I’ve suffered racism on several occasions since I arrived but you can’t pay attention to these things.”
He had no doubt, however, that he would make the same choice if he was ever again faced with the same situation. “Of course, I would do it 50 times over if I had to,” he said. “I’m a parent myself, so all I could think about was how I wanted nothing bad to happen to the child.”
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