NY Daily News – November 13, 2014
by Thomas Tracy, Edgar Sandoval, Larry Mcshane
For 90 nerve-wracking minutes, two veteran window washers shared a Lower Manhattan view both breathtaking and terrifying.
A scaffold malfunction trapped the pair Wednesday outside the 68th floor of 1 World Trade Center, with the dangling duo stuck amid the skyline until FDNY rescuers plucked them from midair.
“We were just reassuring them. ‘We’re here,’” said Lt. Billy Ryan, 45, of FDNY Rescue 1. “They knew they were in a bad spot, but they’re professionals, too. They knew what was going on and they were not panicked.”
Firefighters, using a miniature circle saw, cut through a thick, double-paned window to reach the two men, who were suspended outside an unoccupied floor of the newly opened skyscraper.
The twin windows were sliced in small sections to prevent falling glass, with the stranded workers finally able to shimmy down the tilted scaffold and through a 2-by-8-foot hole.
Their great escape was made 827 feet above the street, before a live television audience and crowds of lunchtime gawkers staring skyward.
“At 68 stories, that’s difficult to do,” said an impressed Ryan. “It’s almost like getting off a boat. They’re 68 stories up and it’s uneven.”
The rescued workers, identified as Juan Lizama, 41, and Juan Lopez, 33, of the Bronx, suffered mild hypothermia from their dizzying stint outside the building, authorities said.
They were treated and released at Bellevue Hospital. Both were experienced washers with the requisite safety training — Lizama had 14 years of experience and Lopez five.Both were seasoned window washers; Lizama had 14 years of experience and Lopez five.
The pair never had an inkling of impending trouble as they headed down the south side of the tower around 12:45 p.m.
“Suddenly (the scaffold) went from horizontal to nearly vertical,” said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. “The cables did not break.”
Ryan said his team never considered the emotional significance of returning to Ground Zero, where 343 firefighters died on 9/11.
“You worry about that later,” he said. “The task at hand is what you worry about.”
Once firefighters got into place on the 68th floor, the two trapped workers flashed them a thumbs-up through the inch-thick glass — one interior and one exterior window.
A second FDNY squad led by Capt. Brian Smith was on the roof of the 1,776-foot building, and they used ropes to deliver a radio so the men could stay in communication with the rescuers.
“We just pointed to the ropes,” he said. “It was like a game of charades. They got that part of it. They weren’t traumatized,” Smith said.
The workers tied the ropes to their harnesses so they would not plummet to the ground if the scaffold collapsed.
Responders broke through a window more than 60 floors up to pull the workers to safety.
The autumn winds buffeted the cockeyed scaffold, moving the open-air rig back and forth, according to officials.
The first man was brought inside at 2:15 p.m., followed by his colleague two minutes later.
The vice president of the union representing the employees said she was told that an apparent malfunction on the roof of the nation’s tallest building was behind the sky-high scare.
One of the two cable lines attached to the scaffold is believed to have gone awry as it uncoiled from a giant spool, causing the line to go slack and the rig to go topsy-turvy, said Shirley Albedol of 32BJ Service Employees International Union.
The cables are controlled from inside the scaffold, authorities said.
The building had just opened last week, with Conde Nast employees moving into their new digs at the long-awaited tower.
The Port Authority and the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration both announced probes of the incident, with OSHA investigators on site Wednesday.
The scaffold rig was inspected Wednesday morning as required before the window washers began their work.
Emergency personnel scrambled to the top of the massive tower to coordinate rescue effort.
The last time the state looked at the rig was in June, with no reported issues in the ensuring months.
Tractel Inc., the same company that installed the 1 World Trade Center scaffolding, was cited in 2007 for unsafe conditions after two window washers plunged 47 stories in a similar Upper East Side incident.
On Dec. 7, 2007, two brothers washing windows at an E. 66th St. residential building plummeted when their scaffold suddenly collapsed. One brother died, the other was permanently injured. Neither was wearing a safety harness.
OSHA investigators determined that crimps used to secure the scaffold’s hoist cables were “improperly installed” by Tractel and thus “unable to support the scaffold’s load.”
OSHA also learned Tractel had failed to inspect the rig to see if the crimps were operating correctly, and the company settled the case for $17,000.
The afternoon accident, with the scaffold hanging at a terrifying angle, forced the closing of sidewalks below as passersby stared at the tower.
Cops hustled to empty the adjoining Sept. 11 memorial park, where tourists and lunch-hour visitors were told to leave.
“It’s awful,” said Nicoka Gorman, who was visiting from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
With Erin Durkin, Tina Moore, Rocco Parascandola and Greg B. Smith
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