Loose railing caused girl's fall
By David Waite and Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writers
MO'ILI'ILI — Police now believe a railing that gave way may have caused a 2-year-old girl to fall Sunday night from the fourth floor of a Nu'uanu apartment building to the pavement.
A statement released yesterday by a Honolulu law firm representing the girl's family said she is in stable condition and recovering from her injuries. She remains at The Queen's Medical Center under observation.
The Advertiser is not publishing the girl's name.
Messages left with the receptionist at The Copulos Law Firm were not returned yesterday.
Police on Monday talked to a 22-year-old woman, who identified herself as the girl's aunt, at the four-story building at 66 Kauila St. just off the Pali Highway.
The woman told investigators she was baby-sitting the toddler who was playing in the exterior hallway that runs in front of the apartments. The woman told investigators the girl fell after one of the railing's vertical bars gave way.
The girl was rushed to Queen's in critical condition.
Police have concluded the girl's fall was an accident and said there were no suspicious circumstances in connection with the incident. Police are no longer investigating.
At the scene of the accident yesterday, yellow caution tape crisscrossed the broken railing while thin pieces of white wire held the loose bars in place.
Neighbors walking past the scene shortly after 1 p.m. yesterday paused to stare.
Eric Tash, manager of the Injury Prevention Program at the state Department of Health, called the girl's fall "a horrible tragedy."
While two other young children were killed in the past six months after falling from the lanai of high-rise buildings, Tash said the girl's plunge on Sunday is different because the girl apparently fell through the railing instead of climbing over it.
In addition, the girl fell on Sunday from a "common area" — the front hallway — instead of a private lanai.
Tash said he hopes the message has gotten out to parents as a result of the first two deadly falls to keep young children off the lanai, and to keep any lanai clear of clutter, as well as boxes and chairs so that children can't climb on a railing and topple over.
But the incident on Sunday involved a situation perhaps where the danger to the child was probably far less apparent, Tash said. He said parents and childcare providers need to be as vigilant as possible in recognizing potential threats to the health and safety of children.
"Children are very inquisitive to begin with and will run around to wherever their curiosity takes them," Tash said. "If left unsupervised, even for a few moments, we want to make sure the child is in an environment that has been made as 'childproof' as possible."
Tash said he does not assess blame in a situations like the one that occurred Sunday but tries to use them as learning experiences, albeit tragic ones.
The girl's fall on Sunday was "incredibly unfortunate," Tash said, because as far as he has been able to learn, the remainder of the railing system was secure.
One of the lessons to be learned from the girl's fall is that building maintenance workers should periodically tug on every vertical railing bar, on every floor, to ensure railings are safe, Tash said.
And, parents and residents of a building who don't have children should contact building maintenance crews about potential safety threats, Tash said.
"Everybody's got a part to play in making sure the environment is safe," he said. "In this case, for whatever reason, a young girl fell through the very safety system that was meant to protect her and others."
Harris Zane, the property manager for the apartment building at 66 Kauila St., did not respond yesterday to a request to comment.
Property records list the Richard Y.C. Mew Trust as the building's owner. Mew, who lives in Moanalua, could not be reached for comment.
Henry Eng, acting director of the city Department of Planning and Permitting, said the building was built in the early 1970s and that the city building code at the time required that the vertical bars on the railing be no more than 9 inches apart. Eng said the building met the code that was in place at the time.
Under today's building code, however, the bars may be no more than 4 inches apart.
Eng said city records show the building's owner was cited only once over the past 30 years and that was last year for trash blocking a portion of a sidewalk. But because the sidewalk in question runs along a private street and the situation was resolved, the city took no further action.
Because of limited staff, city building inspectors do not routinely visit every residential property on the island, Eng said.
When someone complains to the city about a building problem, "inspectors are sent out to see if there is a basis for the complaint," Eng said. No one complained to the city about the railings at 66 Kauila St., Eng said.
