A 3-year-old boy was taken to an area hospital in serious condition Wednesday after falling about 20 feet from a window in an Ala Moana-area residential building and onto a concrete awning.

Drew Tandal was among the midday passers-by who heard screaming and saw a woman hanging out of an Atkinson Plaza condominium window pointing to the awning that hangs over the building’s entrance area.

"At first I didn’t know if someone was fighting or if someone dropped something," said Tandal, who had been on his way to the nearby YMCA for a workout. "I didn’t know what was going on. And then when I heard it was a baby that fell, I mean, that was really scary."

A condo worker, reached later by telephone, said that the boy, who lives on the 11th floor, wandered off and went into the elevator, where surveillance video shows him pushing buttons. He took the elevator down to the fifth floor, got out, and fell from the window in the hallway, said the worker, who gave his name only as Al.

He said the boy’s aunt went looking for him but took the elevator down to the lobby, unaware that the boy had gotten out on the fifth floor.

Tandal, 22, with help from another passer-by, William Rodrigues-Kaiwa, who was walking down Atkinson Drive at the time, climbed onto the awning to sit with the boy before police and fire responders arrived.

When he reached the awning area, Tandal spotted another man who had climbed up the other side of the awning and was already next to the boy. The child was lying on his side and appeared to be exhibiting shallow breathing, Tandal said.

He added, "His face was a little bruised. There was like a little place where there was blood, probably where he hit the (concrete). His arms were a little bloody, a little bruised."

"We just tried to make sure he was OK, and that he didn’t move until the police came," Tandal said. "I don’t know if he understood but I said, ‘It’s OK; you’re going to be all right. They’re almost here. Shhhh, don’t move.’

"And there was another lady that was out of the window saying, ‘It’s going to be all right; it’s going to be all right.’ I mean, there was a bunch of people kind of like calming him down."

Just before 1 p.m. firefighters lowered the boy, strapped into a stretcher, to the ground by way of a ladder propped up against the awning’s ledge.

Emergency Medical Services responded to the scene at 475 Atkinson Drive at 12:35 p.m. and took the boy to an area hospital. The boy was conscious when rescuers first reached him, Tandal said.

"When they were taking him down on the stretcher he was … moving around a little bit," Tandal said. "He was crying."

Police on scene said there appeared to be a child’s footprint on the ledge just below the window where the boy apparently fell, but wouldn’t comment further on the case.

The window is about 20 feet above the awning, which hangs about 15 feet above the sidewalk.