Mom Saves Baby Falling Headfirst With Lightning Fast Reflexes in Viral Video

A Chinese mother has gone viral on TikTok after a CCTV camera at her workplace captured the moment her sharp reflexes saved her son from a headfirst fall.

The mom, who local media outlets referred to as Wen, shared the close call to Douyin—the original version of TikTok released for Chinese markets—on Monday.

The surveillance video reportedly shows Wen sitting on a bench inside her shop in Dongguan, in southern China's Guangdong province, as she prepares to change her baby's diaper.

She becomes momentarily distracted by a nearby colleague and looks away from her infant, who fidgets on the leather seat in front of her, the footage shows. As the child wriggles around and rolls to his left, he suddenly slides off the side of the chair and falls toward the floor while his parent is looking away.

But Wen, seemingly feeling her son slipping from her hands, reacts instantly and grabs hold of his clothing before yanking him back onto the bench in a single continuous movement.

The heart-stopping incident happens in front of her coworker, who runs forward to try and help the boy but arrives to find the infant already safely beside his mom.

"His grandmother is usually the one who minds him," Wen told Shanghai news site The Paper. "She was busy today so I brought him to work."

Wen added: "I was changing his diaper when my coworker called me. I looked up briefly, and that's when my child fell."

"Thankfully, I reacted quickly. I pulled him up before he hit the floor," the mother said, adding that her son was not harmed during the scare, which showed her son dangerously close to landing headfirst on her outstretched foot.

Wen's video has been viewed several million times at the time of writing and has remained on Douyin's trending list since it was posted on March 15.

Social media users have commented on her lightning reactions, but some also offered parenting tips of their own.

"You can't let your kid out of your sight for a single second," one TikTok user said.

"At the end of the day, this was caused by the mother's carelessness," a second commentator added.

Another said: "Thank goodness he was wearing a onesie!"

A fourth, also a mother, wrote: "I once grabbed my daughter in my sleep as she rolled off the side of my bed!"