Hero catches three-year-old girl after she fell from fifth floor apartment balcony in Italy

A banker is considered a hero after he caught a three-year-old child falling five floors from an apartment building in Italy.

Mattia Aguzzi, 37, was passing by with his girlfriend Gloria Piccolo on her way to the shops to do some shopping when the drama happened.

Hearing screams and screams, Mattia rushed under the balcony after a neighbor screamed for help after seeing four-year-old Frida sitting on the edge.

Seconds later, she lost her balance and plunged more than 100 feet from her parents’ fifth-floor apartment in Turin.

Footage filmed seconds after the incident shows Mattia standing aside as police and paramedics check on Frida, who escaped unharmed.

Footage filmed seconds after the incident shows Mattia standing aside while police and paramedics check on Frida

The girl fell from the balcony on the fifth floor of an apartment in a building in Turin, Italy

A woman holding her head and being hugged is believed to be the girl’s mother

A woman holding her head and being hugged is believed to be the girl’s mother.

Mattia said, “I was just leaving my apartment with my girlfriend when we heard some yelling and screaming coming from a building down the street.

“We saw the child standing on the edge of the balcony – I don’t know how long she had been lying there – I ran under it and started yelling at her not to move and to stay still.

“Then she just fell and I positioned myself so I could catch her and she fell into my arms.

“I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best, and it all worked out. To be honest it wasn’t much of a catch, it was more to catch her and we both fell to the floor.

“When she started crying I was relieved because I knew she wasn’t dead and even I had to sit down and catch my breath because the impact was so strong.”

Mattia joked: ‘Don’t call me a hero, I just did what I had to do. Maybe it’s a blessing that I put on some weight and now people won’t tell me to go on a diet.’

Frida’s mother, whose name has not been released, told police she was “doing housework” and lost track of her daughter. When she looked on the balcony, she found herself gone and heard screaming.

Turin Mayor Stefano Lo Russo said: ‘What our fellow citizen Mattia Aguzzi did was a heroic and extraordinary gesture.

“An act of courage and altruism, a sense of care and protection for others, achieved with the help of another citizen whose cries raised the alarm.

“We should both thank them for saving someone else’s life and for which we should be proud and remember how important a sense of community is.

“I will commend him for a civic medal as a token of thanks on behalf of the city for such a courageous and precious gesture.”

Writing on X – formerly known as Twitter – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her gratitude, saying: “The story of the child who fell from the fifth-floor balcony in Turin could have ended in tragedy.

But thanks to the alertness of Mattia Aguzzi, who saw her fall, her life was saved. Grateful thanks and honor to this young hero.’