Cape Town – A toddler survived a four-metre plunge from the Sea Point promenade after a dead bird broke her fall, a relative of the family said.

Alma Krook was on holiday in Cape Town with her family from Sweden when the incident occurred.

On Sunday night she was walking along the promenade, between Marine and Olive streets, when she fell. Sven Arne, a friend of Krook’s mother, said the two-year-old was leaning against the railing when she bent forward and fell on to the “rocks and sand”.

Ward councillor Beverley Schäfer said she had been told by a friend of the family that the child had landed with her head on a dead bird and that this may have cushioned the impact.

It is not clear whether the bird was a seagull or an albatross as has been speculated by some.

Alma was taken to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

City Disaster Management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the toddler was left with bruising to a lung.

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