CORONA — A 5-year-old boy who fell to his death Sunday climbed out of the third-floor window because he was trapped inside the home's bathroom, where the door's lock was installed backward, according to police.
William Chen was found unconscious and with severe trauma in a stairwell to the basement outside his home at 35-59 99th St. on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., police said.
He was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Chen was in the bathroom on the third floor of the home, but was trapped inside because the lock was installed backward, police said. The faulty lock made it "impossible for him to get out," the NYPD said.
The home, part of four two-family units on the corner of 99th Street, was still under construction, city records show.
A neighbor said the home had been under construction for at least two years but she recently saw people outside the house cleaning up.
"It's very surprising because they look they're not ready to be lived in," neighbor Soledad, who declined to give her last name, said of the buildings.
Elaine Hueng, who works at a nearby store, said she's known the family since they moved to Queens from China eight years ago and was devastated by the boy's death.
"They were about to move to the building," she said. "The whole family, they are nice people."
The medical examiner is performing an autopsy to determine the cause of death, police said.
