Toddler who survives 3-story fall 'might be the luckiest kid in the world'

18-month-old Jeremiah Holt managed to survive a 25-foot fall from a window in his family's South Austin neighborhood home.

Joanne Stanley has only one explanation for how 18-month-old Jeremiah Holt managed to survive a fall from a third-floor window in his family's South Austin neighborhood home.

"It's like God had an angel over him," Stanley, a neighbor of Jeremiah's family, said outside the boy's apartment building in the 5400 block of West Augusta Boulevard.

Sometime Wednesday morning, as other family members slept, Jeremiah tumbled from the window onto a patch of rain-muddied grass, bordered by a concrete walk and just a few inches from a gray concrete brick.

"This kid might be the luckiest kid in the world," said Marcel Bright, a spokesman for Stroger Hospital, where Jeremiah was taken after his fall. Early tests indicated the boy didn't break any bones or suffer any other of the injuries that might be expected from a fall of more than 25 feet.

"He's moving around like an 18-month-old kid," Bright said.

The boy was being kept for observation overnight, but could be released as early as Thursday, Bright said.

Outside Jeremiah's building, his pacifier still lay in the mud along with several mangled slats from the blinds that broke off and came down with him.

Neighbors who gathered at the scene couldn't help but think about what might have happened had the boy not hit the muddy patch of grass.

"He's blessed," said Gaberiel Valentine.

Valentine found Jeremiah face down outside the apartment building about 11 a.m. Wednesday. The boy was conscious, but moaning and sprawled at an awkward angle, she said.

At the same time inside Jeremiah's apartment, his family was panicking after discovering the child was missing.

Having slept in late on his day off, the boy's stepgrandfather woke the entire household when he found that the child was not beside him, said Preeterraneika Lewis, the boy's aunt.