WASHINGTON -- A window washer at a downtown office building is safe after some scary moments 60 feet off the ground Tuesday morning.
The man was working on a 10-story building at 14th and Eye Streets around 9:30 a.m. when his lines became tangled, D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter says.
The man was hanging by the safety rope until emergency responders arrived, and was brought down on a ladder, Etter says.
Etter says the man was minutes away from falling because the safety rope holding him was significantly frayed.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is now investigating why the safety rope was damaged, Etter says.
D.C. Fire/EMS Account:
A window washer was plucked from his precarious perch some 60-feet above the street Tuesday (7/11) after hanging from his backup safety line for about 15 minutes.
Units were dispatched around 9:30 AM for the report of the man dangling outside the sixth floor of a 10-story office building. A high-angle rescue assignment responded and found the man hanging from a rope.
Rescue squad personnel discovered that safety line was damaged at the point where it went over the top of the building. Special operations personnel indicated the man probably had five to 10 minutes left to hang on that line before it would have likely snapped, sending him to an almost certain death.
Firefighters aboard Tower-3 positioned the unit quickly along I Street, between 14th & 15th Streets, got the bucket up to the man and brought him in to safety. He was assessed and found to have no injuries. All indications were, despite his harrowing ordeal, he returned to work, with a new harness, of course.
OSHA was investigating the cause of the suspension apparatus failure.
