KANCHANABURI: A very lucky young girl was saved from certain death when she fell from a hospital rooftop while playing and her shirt caught on lettering sticking out from the outside wall.

A video clip posted online on Monday by Facebook user Noom Muangnon showed hospital staff risking their own safety and pulling the girl back up onto the rooftop.

The 4-year-old girl had accompanied relatives on a visit to her sick father, being treated on the seventh floor of the hospital, on Sunday evening, TNN reported.

She wandered away from them and went out on the rooftop to play.

News reports said she was chasing a gecko that ran off the roof and down the wall. She leaned out, reaching down to catch it, overbalanced and fell.

Miraculously, her shirt caught and held on the Thai alphabet letter tortao, part of the name of the building, Tuek 100 pee or 100 Years Building, about a metre below the rooftop edge.

The shirt material held and did not tear away.

Patients, relatives and others watched in amazement as staff slowly pulled her back up to safely.