Left home unsupervised, a five-year-old girl in Urumqi took the leap of her dreams on Saturday (March 4), only to come crashing back down to reality, ending up severely injured.

According to a report from Xinjiang newspaper City Consumption Chenbao, Guoguo (not her real name) leapt out of a window on the 11th floor wearing a backpack and carrying an umbrella.

The little girl landed on a fourth-floor cement platform below the window, suffering severe head, spinal and pelvic injuries that required multiple rounds of surgery.

Guoguo had been left at home watching cartoons for most of the day, with her parents returning from work at about 9pm to find their daughter missing.

Half an hour of frantic searching passed before Guoguo's father, who only wanted to be known as Mr Feng, looked out of the window and located his daughter below.

Guoguo later regained consciousness in the hospital on Sunday (March 5), where she told her father that she had wanted to mimick the actions of certain characters in her favourite cartoon series, Boonie Bears.

Said Mr Feng in the report: "I was heartbroken just listening to her. I told her to never jump from heights again, and she nodded."

Guoguo had already flashed her adventurous streak not too long before in a previous incident when, also left at home alone to watch cartoons, she made her way alone to the mall where her mother works.

The report added that Guoguo could have escaped death because of her lighter body weight and better flexibility compared to adults, which would have lessened the impact of the fall.