Two men praised after catching falling baby in Lawrence

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Two men were praised as heroes today after they caught an 18-month-old baby girl who plummeted at least 30 feet from the window of a triple-decker apartment building in Lawrence.

Alex Day, 23, of Lawrence joined Robert Lemire, 45, of Methuen in catching the baby as she hurtled towards the earth Sunday night.

"She looked at me and had a weird look on her face as if to say, 'Wow, all of a sudden I'm down here,' " Day recalled in an interview today. He said he rushed the baby back upstairs to her home. On the stairs, he said, the baby actually started chuckling.

Lemire said he was walking down Haverhill Street at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, talking to a friend on his cellphone about softball practice, when he saw some toys falling out of the window of a three-decker.

"Next thing you know, I hear a baby cry, so I automatically looked there and there was a baby hanging out the window," he said. "So I pretty much bolted across the street."

Lemire opened the door of the house on Haverhill Street, yelled for help, then returned underneath the window and tried to call 911. Day, who had been in a Bible study session on the first floor, joined him and Lemire soon warned him, "Here she comes."

The baby fell through the air and when she landed, "he pretty much got the top and I got the diaper end, or the bottom half, or whatever you call it," Lemire said.

Lemire, a home remodeling contractor who is married with two children, 13 and 16, said, "I was nervous as heck, thinking of my own kids."

Day, a trucking manager, said it was fortunate that he had started going back to the gym so he could help catch the baby, who weighed about 30 pounds.

He saw divine intervention at work in the baby's rescue. "Yeah, I think God had a lot to do with this," said Day. "Definitely, by God."

Caliah Clark was taken to a hospital. but is expected to be OK. The two rescuers were "real heroes," Police Chief John Romero said. The Department of Social Services was notified and was expected to investigate.

The child's father, Randall Clark, said he was watching a 2-month-old baby in another room when the incident occurred, Romero said.

Romero said there was no child guard on the window.

"There are a number of things we are doing to investigate on our end," he said. "At this point, we are investigating to determine what led up to this incident."

Officials said the baby had fallen 40 feet, but Lemire said that was incorrect.

The fall was 28 feet, perhaps 30, he said. "Like I said, I'm a remodeling contractor so I'm pretty good at the heights."

"I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl. I was just happy we were lucky enough to catch her," he said.