Baby survives 8-story fall from NYC apartment; mom doesn't

By Kevin Spak, Newser | USATODAY

A 10-month-old baby is miraculously alive today, after surviving a fall from an eighth-story Harlem apartment -- by landing on his mother's chest.

Cindy Bacharach, a 44-year-old lawyer, leapt out of her apartment window yesterday afternoon while clutching the child after an argument with her husband, police tell the New York Post. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The husband had apparently left the apartment an hour before her jump, sources tell DNAInfo.

"I heard a scream, a scared scream," one witness said. "I noticed a woman was falling. As she was coming down, she was coming down on her back. I saw the baby bounce on her chest and fall to the concrete. The baby started crying."

Two policemen also witnessed the fall; they happened to be sitting in a squad car near the scene.

A search of Bacharach's apartment yielded a "largely incomprehensible" 7-page suicide note in which she blamed herself for medical issues the baby has, sources tell the Post, saying she was suffering from postpartum depression.