Apartment ceiling section collapses on pregnant woman and child

DETROIT (WJBK) - A child, a pregnant woman and a ceiling collapse.

Dangerous conditions in a Detroit apartment send a mother-to-be to the emergency room.

Kanitha's 5-year-old son is sleeping on the sofa now but as the young man slept  during Tuesday's rain at the Lexington Apartments on Rosa Parks in Detroit, her motherly intuition kicked in.

She decided to move her sleeping son and that's when his bedroom ceiling suddenly caved in on top of both mom and son.

"As I was bending over picking him up, everything came down right on me," said Kanitha Fullilove. "Which made me fall with him, it hit my stomach and once we were able to get up we just hurried and rushed up out of here."

Her 5-year-old son was okay, Kanitha shielded him. But she is five months pregnant and was hit with debris. She was taken to Henry Ford Hospital where doctors kept her overnight to check her out, and her unborn.

"Right now everything seemed okay," she said. "But I have to follow with my other doctors because I hit my stomach pretty hard."

Kanitha placed a red bucket in the boy’s bedroom to catch dripping rainwater. The increasing drip encouraged her to pull her son to safety. It was just in time.

"He was very frightened. He didn't know what happened," she said.

The landlord did not make repairs when Kanitha noticed the kitchen leaking just after Christmas. And now the boy's bedroom collapse. Kanitha says she's current on her $898 monthly rent. She said warned the landlord the ceiling was leaking.

And now that it's collapsed?

"They said that they'll be out first thing in the morning and they never came and never called, they didn't come and they still haven't come out at all," she said.

FOX 2 called the landlord's number and got an answer but not the landlord.

FOX 2: "Can you tell me if there may be repairs made here as soon as possible?"

"Well actually I'm in security," claimed the voice at the other end of the phone.

FOX 2: "Will you be able to get a message to them they need to make repairs of this collapsed ceiling as soon as possible?"

"Ok I will call maintenance," she said.

FOX 2 will continue to track the repair effort in the apartment.