5-year-old boy survives fall out of third-story window

Five-year-old Justin Castaner was playing with his 6-year-old brother on a dresser just before 9 p.m. Thursday when Justin pushed on the third-story window screen. It gave way.

Justin fell out the window, rolled down a roof, struck a metal window awning and fell several feet onto landscape bark. Bleeding from a head laceration, Justin stumbled down the sidewalk toward a neighbor’s door at the Riverwalk Point apartments, 5008 E. Buckeye.

Rebecca Burgess, 45, said she came out her door when she heard Justin screaming.

“He looked up at me and he was covered with blood,” Burgess said. “I ran out, scooped him up and put some ice on him. He was white as a sheet. He was just hysterical.”

Burgess put Justin into her bed until emergency crews from Spokane County Fire District 9 could arrive.

“He was really scared and he said his head hurt. He was worried about his brother,” Burgess said. “But we got him calmed down.”

Several neighbors heard the commotion and responded.

“I thought he had just fallen. He said, ‘I fell out the window.’ I know where he lives,” Burgess said, referring to the third-floor apartment. “I couldn’t believe he was alive.”

Justin had a cut to his scalp and Burgess said she heard paramedics say that his arm and leg may have been fractured. .

Justin was still undergoing evaluation at Sacred Heart Medical Center, and hospital officials didn’t have his condition late Thursday. However, firefighters said he was alert and answering their questions before he was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Justin’s mother was at a meeting and not at home when he fell, said Vicki Savage, whose daughter, Jennifer, 13, was baby-sitting Justin at the time.

Jennifer’s brother, Anthony Savage, 15, said he was in the room when Justin fell.

He said Justin and Justin’s 6-year-old brother had climbed on a dresser next to the window in the bedroom.

Justin started “playing with the screen and fell through,” Anthony said.

“I ran outside and called the police.”

Neighbor Candy Gates, 28, was inside when she heard Justin fall.

“I heard the little boy scream. I ran over and they said he fell out the window,” Gates said. “He was asking for his sister. I saw blood everywhere.”