The first frame of the amateur video takes your breath away. A small child in China's Guandong province is suspended from the corner of a four story residential building.

He looks to be not even 2 years old, small enough not to know any better when he somehow escaped supervision on Sunday and climbed over the balcony wall and very nearly fell to his death.

Instead, his feet dangle as his body is suspended from what appears to be a metal grating that runs the perimeter if the balcony. It looks as if the child is holding onto two of the horizontal rungs above him. But look closer and it seems only the child's head is holding him up after his body slipped through a crack.

Below him an adult scales the side of the building, extending an arm above him to catch the toddler's feet, giving the child's  head a break from bearing his body weight. Onlookers gathered and held a yellow blanket beneath the pair to catch them if they fell.

Emergency workers got there in time and both the child and the man who tried to save him are safe.