A delivery driver is being heralded as a hero, after he caught and saved a toddler after she fell from a 12th-floor balcony.

The toddler had managed to climb over the railing of her balcony in Hanoi, Vietnam, and was dangling precariously, 12 storeys up.

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Neighbours from surrounding apartments were screaming and shouting – the noise alerted delivery driver Nguyen Ngoc Manh, 31, who was sitting in his car on the street.

He told news outlets that without thinking, he jumped out of his car and onto the roof of a nearby shed.

“I scaled the wall and saw that she could fall onto the metallic roof of the house used to store electric generators for the complex, so I tried to climb on top of it,” Manh told local news.

“I made it, but couldn’t stand firmly, as [it] was crooked.”

Video footage taken shows the terrifying moment the three-year-old child loses its grip on the balcony rail, falling.

What we don’t see is Manh underneath, stumbling – but ultimately catching and saving the child’s life.

Delivery driver Nguyen Ngoc Manh says he doesn’t want to be called a hero – he was just trying to do good, he says. Photo: Facebook

He lost his footing, he says, but threw himself forward onto the roof to break the fall of the child. He just made it (and denting the roof substantially in the process).

Doctors diagnosed the girl, 3, with a dislocated hip, but no other injuries from the 50-metre drop.

Manh is now being treated as a celebrity.

“It’s not just changed, my life has turned upside down,” he told press.

The child sustained a dislocated hip in the fall, but ultimately survived.

“Normally my Facebook posts draw only a few dozen responses, now I get tens of thousands.

“Some have sent me money via my phone number. This disorientates me. I don’t want to receive any money I haven’t earned by myself.”