Police are investigating after an eight-year-old Kitchener boy fell at least three metres into a ventilation hole full of garbage on Wednesday night.
It happened outside the apartment building at 294 Chandler Drive in Kitchener where Yusef Salih and his family live.
Someone pulled a fire alarm and as residents were streaming out of the building Salih fell. Someone had reportedly removed the grate covering the hole.
At the time Salih's mother Merfat Apubakar feared the worst, she says "I was scared maybe my son he lost an eye, something like this, or maybe something happened in his head."
Holly Campbell, a spokesperson for the landlord says they are horrified at what happened. They believe a group of youths are responsible for pulling the fire alarm and removing the grate cover.
The grate was apparently checked by property management as usual around 8 p.m., but when the fire alarm went off within the hour the grate was gone.
When they confronted one of the youths, Campbell says "That kid uttered threats against the property manager stating he was well-known in the neighbourhood and the property manager didn't want to mess with him."
The Waterloo Regional Police Service is investigating.
Meanwhile the property management company has soldered the grate and is checking other buildings to ensure nothing similar will happen again.
Apubakar and the whole family are hoping for justice, she says "If it's not my son maybe it [will] happen for another person."
Salih's stitches are healing, but he's still afraid of fire alarms and going outside, and he now wants to live somewhere else.
