19-month-old girl hurt in fall from balcony

A 19-month-old girl suffered head injuries yesterday in a fall from a balcony overlooking a swimming pool at Notre Dame Preparatory School near Towson, Baltimore County police said.

The toddler was walking with a 12-year-old girl toward a soda machine above the pool at the school on Hampton Lane about 5:20 p.m. when the girl stopped to talk to a friend, police said. The toddler wandered away and somehow fell off the railed balcony, landing nearly 20 feet below on the tile floor next to the pool.

The toddler, whose name was not released, was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital and was held for observation in the pediatric intensive care unit, police said.