Boy, 2, Accidentally Pushes Mum To Her Death

A woman who died after falling into an empty lift shaft was most likely pushed by her toddler son, police claim. 

Xie Hong Feng was found dead, lying at the bottom of the shaft after she had been trying to find her keys.

The 45-year-old is understood to have dropped them in a lift in the city of Ningbo, eastern China.

Building manager Yang Shao, 52, said: "She was taking some rubbish out but on the way down dropped her keys and she wanted me to help her get them.

"I told her I would manually move the lift up one storey while keeping the door open so she could try and get her keys, which she had dropped in the narrow space between the lift and the 5th floor.

"I then went to see if she had found them but only saw her two-year-old boy standing there.

"When I asked him where his mummy was he said he had pushed her.

"I looked over the edge and saw her body lying at the bottom of the shaft.

"I immediately grabbed him and phoned the police."

A police spokesman said: "Unfortunately there is no surveillance footage on that floor apart from inside the lifts so we have no way of really knowing what happened.

"But if the boy says he pushed her then we will have to accept that, although we won’t be pressing charges as this was certainly an accident."

The woman’s distraught husband Tang Hsieh, 50, said: "The saddest thing is not only is my wife now dead, but my son is facing the prospect of having to bear the guilt of her death for the rest of his life."