Alive after a 47-floor fall
Miracle in New York 57th Street. Alcides Moreno and his younger Edgar set out to clean the windows of the 47-floor luxury Solow Tower building at Manhattan’s Upper East side 57th Street. on 7th December 2007 morning. They took the lift to the top and walked out on to the roof. Moments later, as disaster struck, when they climbed on the 16ft-wide (4.9m) safety platform the cables holding it in place “slipped from their attachment point”, according to the United States Department of Labour accident report.
The cable came off on the left side first Edgar plummeted 472ft (144m), tavelling at over 120mph, landing in a narrow alley. Alcides Moreno’s right-hand side of the scaffold also broke loose and plummeted. While Edgar landed on a wooden fence, his body was severed, Alcides was found crouching among a pile of twisted metal, still clutching the scaffold controls, still alive and breathing. s my brother fell off all the way down. Alcides was rushed to a nearby hospital and induced into a coma, as he had sustained brain and spinal column, chest and abdomen injuries and factures to his ribs, right arm and both legs. He underwent several operations, including insertion of a catheter in his brain to reduce swelling and received 24 pints of blood.
According to Dr Glenn Asaeda from the New York City Fire Department “The survival rate was not good even a fall from a four-storey height.