Tarzana Boy’s Plunge Sparks New Warnings : Accidents: A study says that incidents among children have become a problem in Los Angeles. The co-author blames the lack of a city code requiring window guards.

Reyna Alonzo was shocked that her 15-month-old baby boy, left unattended for only seconds, was somehow able to slide open a window in her Tarzana apartment building and push out the screen, falling headfirst to the pavement 20 feet below.

“I didn’t see him. I was just in the living room talking,” the 18-year-old mother said Thursday as she cradled the recovering infant in her arms at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles. “I never thought he would be able to open the window.”

Though children falling from buildings is a recognized problem on the East Coast, with its tall apartment buildings and densely populated cities, the accidents have not been perceived as a problem in the West, with its comparatively lower buildings.

But a study published in the July issue of the medical journal Pediatrics found that falls are a problem in Los Angeles too.

According to the study, falls from balconies, windows, fire escapes, walls and roofs have hurt at least 158 children in Los Angeles County from January, 1986, to July, 1990, inflicting permanent brain damage on 10% of the victims.

More than 70% of the falls studied were out of second-story windows.

Co-author Nancy Schonfeld, director of emergency medical services at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, which has the only pediatric trauma center in the county, blames many of the accidents on a lack of city building codes requiring window guards, which elsewhere have cut falls by more than one-third.

“In this situation, the fix is pretty easy,” Schonfeld said. “You put up window guards, and you reduce the number of deaths and injuries.”

After a spate of child fatalities by falls in 1976, New York City began requiring window guards in many buildings, cutting fatalities from falls by 35% over two years, according to the study.

But Schonfeld surveyed hardware stores and discovered that window guards are not so easy to find in Los Angeles.

“The kinds of guards that protect children from falling really aren’t marketed here,” she said. Here, she said, they sell bars to stop intruders from getting in, not to prevent babies from falling out.

The first thing Alonzo plans to do when she returns home from the hospital, she said, is install locks on the windows of her apartment.

Her baby, Erubiel Paez, suffered only minor bruising around the eyes in the fall and was smiling and playful late Thursday.

As she made plans to take her son home late Thursday, Alonzo said she was still shaken by his brush with death.

“I thought he had broken his neck,” she said. “Now I feel I have a second chance.”

Children Falling From Heights

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles studied 151 children who were admitted from 1986 to 1990 after falling from heights. Sixty-two percent of them fell from windows. Two-thirds of the victims suffered at least a fracture and more than 30% required a stay in the intensive care unit. One child died and 10% were left neurologically impaired.

The following is a breakdown of fall and patient characteristics:

* Falls

The city of Los Angeles has no building codes pertaining to windows, window screens or window guards; 93% of falls occurred in or from apartments. Location Falls from windows: 61.6% Falls from balconies: 23.8% Falls from fire escapes: 8.0% Falls from roofs, walls, ledges: 5.6% Height First story: 8.2% Second story: 71.6% Third story: 20.2% Victims Patients were likely to be male, younger than 3 years old and playing at the time of the fall. Age Less than 3 years: 53.9% 3-5 years: 20.4% 5-10 years: 21.1% Greater than 10 years: 4.6% Source: Childrens Hospital Los Angeles