Window Cleaning Fall Update - Anchors Suspect

VERY LUCKY: The man, put in a neck brace on a rigid stretcher, was later found to have only minor injuries.

Landing on a parked car probably saved the life of an abseiler who fell five storeys while cleaning a high-rise building, says a paramedic who treated him at the scene. The Labour Department is investigating what caused the window cleaner to plummet from the eighth storey of the Corrections Department's 14-storey Mayfair House off Aurora Tce into a third-floor car park below. He was taken to Wellington Hospital with suspected back, leg and pelvis injuries, but was later found to have escaped with simply a dislocated toe.

Wellington Free Ambulance team manager Kate Worthington was one of the first to arrive yesterday after the man fell from his rope into car park No93 soon after midday at the site near The Terrace. She said she had seen people die in falls from shorter distances. "It's really been quite a fortunate day for him. "He's free-fallen ... and the way the building's positioned there's a row of car parks at the bottom, and he's struck one of the parked cars with his leg, which was enough to slow him down. "He's certainly been injured, but nowhere near as badly as he could have been."

Paramedics cut the man free from his abseiling harness, fitted a neck brace and stabilised him on a rigid stretcher to minimise potential spinal injuries. Mrs Worthington said the man was lucid and able to talk to paramedics after his fall. "He was being quite brave. I would have been performing far more than that in his situation. He had been anxious about what caused the accident and did not know what had gone wrong, she said. The man and his workmate told paramedics he had been using a safety rope as well as his primary abseiling rope, but both had failed.

Wellington industrial abseiler Karl Millanta said he did not know the circumstances of yesterday's accident, but if safety regulations were followed, it was "pretty much impossible" to fall while abseiling. Backup mechanisms were designed to stop abseilers falling more than 600 millimetres without locking up. Mr Millanta said he thought there should be tougher training standards for new abseilers. "There's two- or three-week courses, but the problem is, these new guys do the course, then don't go abseiling for another six months, so they forget everything."

Cleaner jokes after 6-floor plunge: A window cleaner who fell up to six storeys from a Wellington building and on to a car was last night "chatting and joking" in his hospital bed - his only injury a dislocated toe. The man fell from the Mayfair House building on The Terrace about noon yesterday, partly landing on the parked car. He clipped the right front of the car above the bumper.  His boss, Mike Roche, the co-owner and director of Window Cleaning and Contractors, told the Herald the man's leg hit the bumper. He said his staff member was "safe and well" and had been visited in hospital by his daughter. He was expected to be discharged last night after getting the all-clear from doctors, who were checking x-rays and scans. A hospital spokesman said medical staff were amazed at the man's recovery. "I think he's still coming to terms with how lucky he is. It's amazing."

Police at the scene yesterday spoke to several people, including the man's colleague and an office worker on one of the top floors who had waved to the window cleaner moments before he fell. The man's safety gear, including a helmet, helped to save his life, police said.  Earlier, Wellington Free Ambulance team manager Kate Worthington, who was at the scene, said the man had been "quite upset, as was his colleague who was with him at the time". St John medical director Tony Smith said it was a miracle the man was alive. "It's extraordinary for someone to fall from that height and survive. "We only see people fall and survive when something significant has broken their fall and in this case it was the car."

Dr Smith said the vehicle would have been an important factor in saving the worker's life. "The rope may not have completely given way, for example, and that could have helped ..." Dr Smith remembered a young man who fell from the fifth floor of an apartment building and was saved because he hit the awnings at each level. The Mayfair Building is 13 storeys high and houses several businesses, including a dental clinic and the Department of Corrections information centre. A Corrections spokeswoman said last night that no staff member had seen the fall, but workers rushed to help the man. A Labour Department investigation has started.

Mr Roche (pictured) said as well as that investigation, the company had launched its own inquiry using an independent investigator to find out what went wrong. "I don't know exactly what happened." But the fact the man emerged with only a dislocated toe, he said, showed there were systems in place that prevented a worse outcome.

Building's anchors not tested before cleaner fell: The high-rise building from which a window cleaner fell five storeys yesterday was not part of a Department of Labour review of the safety of roof anchors, the department said today. The anchors are used for wires holding the platforms of window cleaners and other workers. In February last year the department announced an independent engineer would oversee testing of the abseil anchors on some Wellington buildings. The investigation was started after claims that anchors on a 12-storey apartment block were unsafe and that one had pulled out.

In yesterday's incident a Window Cleaning and Contractors worker fell from the annex of Mayfair House on The Terrace, about midday. He escaped with just a dislocated toe when a parked car partially broke his fall. Investigations by the Department of Labour as well as the cleaning company into the incident have begun. A department spokeswoman told NZPA the Mayfair Building's roof anchors had been tested, but the annex where the cleaner was working was not part of last year's review. The incident is still under investigation and it cannot be determined that anchor bolt issues are involved, the spokeswoman said.

Window cleaner survives 14-storey fall: Heads are still shaking in Wellington over how a window cleaner survived a five story drop from a building on The Terrace. The incident happened around midday yesterday when the man was cleaning the Corrections Department's 14-storey Mayfair House. He plummeted into a third-floor car park from about half way down the building, escaping with just a dislocated toe. Wellington Free Ambulance team manager Kate Worthington says if a parked car didn't break his fall, things could've been much worse. "His lower legs have landed on the bonnet of the car, it would appear if that car wasn't parked in that particular position he would've impacted the concrete below."

Neil Thomson, associate professor at the University of Otago’s physics department, spelled out the unlikely escape from more serious injury or death. He said a person falling from 45 to 50 metres would reach a speed of 100km/h by the time they struck the ground. Coming to rest over 5 metres mean the person’s force of impact would have been approximately 10 g – twice as strong as slamming on the brakes in a Formula One car at full speed.