Sahra Parrottino, 7, left, who fell 5 metres out of her bedroom window with sister Alyssa, 8, and mum Katherine / Pic: Mark Evans Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE mother of a girl seriously injured after falling through a bedroom window has pleaded for authorities to immediately tighten building codes.
Katherine Parrottino's daughter Sahra broke her wrist and nose and suffered facial fractures and a damaged liver after falling backwards through the window of her home in Sydney's south last July.
She landed on the concrete pavement 5m below, but somehow managed to stand just moments after the fall.
Another child injured in a similar accident this week was not so lucky.
The two-year-old boy remains in a serious condition in an induced coma after falling 13m from a third-storey window at Eastwood on Monday.
Mrs Parrottino said every new report of a child falling through a window and being seriously injured brought memories flooding back of that horrific day last July when Sahra had her accident.
"I relive it every time I hear a story of a child falling out of a window and think something has to be done," Mrs Parrottino said.
"Sahra looked like she had been hit by a car. I had nightmares in the past, like most mothers probably do, about them drowning, being hit by a car or kidnapped, but not once did it enter my radar they could fall out a window. "I thought how did she fall out the window, how does this happen?"
The Australian Medical Association backed Mrs Parrottino's calls for change, urging the government to introduce compulsory window safety measures on all NSW homes.
New building codes to be introduced in May will require bedroom windows on new homes to be fitted with a lock or barrier to prevent them being opened by more than 12.5cm.
But the same rules won't apply to existing homes, with fears more accidents will occur if the law changes are not made retrospective.
"We need legislative change," AMA state president Brian Owler said.
"Otherwise, we will continue to see children injured or dying in these preventable accidents."
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