New York, N.Y.-- Several workers high up over the streets of New York had some scary moments on Tuesday. And to add to it, one of the firefighters who saved the workers in the first incident had quite a story of his own.
Eyewitness News' Ken Rosato has the details.
The men dangled precariously for more than an hour and are just thankful to the firefighters who safely got them down.
Manhattan's Rescue 1 has been to more than its share of emergencies. So it wasn't too shocking when the brave men of this department were called to Worldwide Plaza at 49th and 8th to rescue two men dangling from a damaged scaffold.
The technique? drop down a firefighter to grab them.
Firefighter Robert Roderka, Rescue 1 FDNY: "I knew the guys that was doing the rigging, they did the hard work. They just put me over on the rope, I really didn't have to do a whole lot."
It's a good thing all went well for Firefighter Roderka, today is his last day at Rescue 1. He leaves for another firehouse on Thursday, where he will serve as a lieutenant.
It was lucky too, for the men on the scaffold. Seems around 6:00 this morning, they were lowering themselves from the tower's roof, some 500 feet above 8th Avenue, when the veteran window washers ran into trouble.
Silva Rui, Window Washer: "The left side was coming down."
The good news is,the two are just fine and they say they wanna go right back to work.
John Martinho, Window Washer: "No today, but then tomorrow I go back to work. What happens I don't no know."
Just to show how busy of a morning it was for Rescue 1, about two hours later they were called to another scaffolding rescue.
Two workers nearly fell to their deaths when their scaffold gave way high above West 75th Street. They were working on a fifteen story residential building at 215 West 75th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam.
FDNY Battalion Chief Michael McPartland says one end of the scaffold gave way when a supporting line either snapped, or unraveled. The men were left dangling by their safety harnesses. They were rescued quickly by firefighters and were not seriously injured.
Copyright 2006 WABC-TV.
Republished with permission of WABC-TV.
