Opening Our Hearts & Wallets

Pedro Perez, the window washer who survived after falling 11 stories and onto the roof of a car in San Francisco has been moved to a rehab facility.

SF Window Washer Who Survived Falling 11 Stories Touched By Outpour of Support, Donations: A window washer who survived after falling 11 stories and onto the roof of a car in San Francisco has been moved to a rehab facility. Pedro Perez continues to recover from injuries suffered during the late November fall. He is also learning that strangers have opened their hearts and wallets to help his family pay the bills. "He started crying because he couldn't understand how much people had helped and how much actually cared," said Monica Perez, his daughter. "It touched his heart that he is not going to have to worry about us as much as he thought."

The family had been living on workers comp, and hoped to raise $20,000 through a fund raising site to offset living expenses. So far, donations have topped $78,000 -- and many come with touching messages from donors who have never met Pedro Perez. Monica Perez said her father is doing better and is eager to follow his therapy. She added that her father does not remember the accident.

"We are lucky to still have him," she said.

Hello this is Monica Perez the daughter of Pedro Perez, I just wanted to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts on behalf of my father and my family and thank everyone for all their support their generosity and loving comments for the family it means a lot to us to know that were not alone and that people are willing to give us what little they may have just to help us in this time of need. The outcome of the fundraiser has surpassed anything we could have hoped for thanks to all the donations we have gotten in these past days. It will be possible not only for me to go back to school in the summer but it also gives my father a piece of mind to know that we wont have to struggle any longer with the bills and that we are going to be okay. This will also help him concentrate more on his rehab' so he doesn't try to rush things just to try to get back to work. We hope that soon, we will have our father back home with his family where he belongs. Once again, I want to thank everyone for helping us through this difficult time and making the holiday season a more pleasant one than we had anticipated - MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS TO EVERYONE  - Perez Family.

Perez suffered "extensive brain trauma," fractured his pelvis, broke his arm and ruptured an artery in his right arm. Perez cannot walk, and it's unclear if he'll ever be able to. Still, Perez's memory is coming back, his wife said, and he started calling his family members by name recently. "He has improved a lot," she said. Alfredo Fletes, a spokesman for the Services Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, added that Perez is "recovering quickly," faster than doctors first thought.

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People Donate Thousands For Pedro Perez

Maricela Perez, center, wife of Pedro Perez, a San Leandro man who fell from an 11-story building in San Francisco while window washing, speaks about her husband's recovery with her daughter Gaby Perez, 11, left, and Colin O'Leary, right, a Service Employees International Union organizer, at the SEIU United Service Workers West office in Oakland, Calif.

Window washer who fell 130 feet in S.F. 'wants to get up and run’ - Daniela Perez says her father, Pedro, is a stubborn man. The 58-year-old San Leandro window washer is stubborn about working hard. He is stubborn about passing down his values to his three daughters. And now, he is stubbornly fighting back after suffering extensive brain trauma, a shattered pelvis and a broken arm when he plummeted 11 stories from the roof of a building in San Francisco — and somehow survived.

“He is fighting,” Daniela, 16, said Monday. “He wants to get up already. He wants to get up and run.” It’s going to be awhile, though, before Perez can run — or even walk. He’s been slowly recovering at San Francisco General Hospital since the Nov. 21 accident, when he plunged from the top of 400 Montgomery St. during a job that went wrong. He was hurtling toward the asphalt below when, in an unusual piece of good fortune, he crashed into and crumpled the roof of a passing Toyota Camry.

Perez’s family is now reluctantly asking for help from the public as he embarks on a long recovery. His wife, 37-year-old Maricela, and three daughters — Daniela, 11-year-old Gaby and Monica, 19 — started a crowdfunding site to raise money. Perez, who has worked as a window washer for 15 years, has insurance through work to cover his medical bills and is getting workers’ compensation checks.

But without his full income, the family members said, they are scraping by. Maricela has been working extra hours at a plastic factory, while Monica quit school to take another job. “It’s not easy to be asking for help,” Maricela said through a translator at a news conference Monday in Oakland. Her husband, she said, “was the one helping to make ends meet. We need him a lot. He is our backup.”

A lone shoe of window washer, Pedro Perez who fell 11 stories onto a moving car sits in the gutter of Montgomery and California streets in San Francisco.

When Maricela first learned of the accident, she was told by a relative that her husband had died. It wasn’t until after she had frantically picked up her daughters from school that she learned through authorities he was alive — barely. Along with the brain trauma and broken bones, Perez was hemorrhaging internally from a ruptured artery in his right arm. Maricela Perez also didn’t know the incredible circumstances of the fall. It was around 10 a.m., amid the bustling crowds of the city’s Financial District, when Perez fell 130 feet into Mohammad Alcozai’s 2002 Camry.

Witnesses stepped in to help — calling 911, stopping traffic and urging Perez to hold on — and paramedics were at the scene within minutes, stabilizing Perez and rushing him to a hospital. “I think God wanted me to be there just at the moment that poor man fell,” said Alcozai, a traveling tech specialist from Dublin, who had slowed down and then sped up after his car’s navigation system shut down momentarily. “It was a miracle that he was able to fall in my car, and it was a miracle that I was OK.”

The driver of a 2002 Toyota Camry that was crushed after a window washer fell 11 stories onto its roof talks on the phone.

In the days after the accident, Maricela Perez said, “It was surgery after surgery. The doctors induced a coma because the suffering was so great. Truly, it is a miracle that he is still alive.” When he finally woke up, Perez wasn’t able to speak, his family said. He didn’t remember the fall, nor could he recognize familiar faces. But in the past few weeks, he has improved.

He’s now calling his relatives by name and is out of the hospital’s intensive care unit. Soon he will be moved to a rehabilitation center in Pleasanton, where he will work to regain use of his right side, Maricela said. “At first, it was hard to see him and not be able to ask if he’s OK,” Daniela said. “Now he’s talking. He can tell us what hurts. Before we couldn’t help him. We felt helpless.”

An investigator takes photos of window scaffolding platform after window washer, Pedro Perez fell 11 stories onto a moving car at Montgomery and California streets in San Francisco.

California workplace safety regulators are still looking into what caused Perez’s fall, and said Monday that they could not release details about the case until the investigation is complete. Century Window Cleaning of Concord, the firm doing the job, has not commented. “We have up to six months to complete the investigation,” said Peter Melton, a Cal/OSHA spokesman. “Typically, they are not finished within a month.”

Perez’s loved ones said they will spend Christmas at the hospital. They said he is eager to get back to work, but that his days of washing windows are behind him. “It’s hard not having my dad at home, especially with Christmas and my birthday coming up,” said Daniela, who turns 17 next month. “I hope he gets better, and he gets to come home. I want to be able to celebrate with him.”

Pedro Perez has had several surgeries for the injuries he received when he landed atop a car in the city's financial district Nov. 21 after plummeting 130 feet from the top of the Sterling Bank and Trust. He suffered extensive brain trauma, severely damaged his right arm and fractured his pelvis, and it's not clear whether he'll walk again. Maricela Perez through a translator said “They are saying it’s a miracle.”

Pedro Perez Rehabilitation

On November 21, 2014 San Francisco high rise window cleaner Pedro Perez fell from the top of an 11 story building at the corner of California and Montgomery Streets in San Francisco.

Family Of San Francisco Window Washer Who Survived 11-Story Fall Asking For Donations To Cover Hospital Bills: A donation fund has been started for the San Francisco window cleaner who survived an 11-story fall last month. The family of 50-year-old Pedro Perez has asked for donations to help pay for his recovery costs and mounting family bills after he fell about 130 feet while washing the windows of 400 Montgomery Street on November 21st.

“Our dad’s life is the best gift we could’ve received this holiday season,” says his 19-year old daughter, Monica Perez. “But our family just lost its main breadwinner, and we need help staying above water as we navigate a difficult recovery process.” Perez suffered internal bleeding as well as a broken arm and fractured pelvis, according to his daughter. In a televised interview, she said he is off a breathing machine and he is talking. His family is expected to give an update on his condition in Oakland on Monday. Donations for his rehabilitation fund will be accepted online here.

Damage left on a Toyota Camry after window washer, Pedro Perez fell from above California St. in San Francisco.

Pedro Perez Rehabilitation Fund: On November 21, 2014 San Francisco high rise window cleaner Pedro Perez fell from the top of an 11 story building at the corner of California and Montgomery Streets in San Francisco. Miraculously, by the grace of God, the power of life or what one chooses to believe, Pedro survived the fall by landing on the back of a moving car. He was gravely injured, however, suffering extensive brain trauma , fracturing his pelvis, breaking his arm, rupturing an artery in his right arm, and deeply hemorrhaging internally. 

Pedro’s recovery has begun, and despite the sheer miracle that he has begun conversing with others and that the strength of his memory is returning, his road to recovery will be a long and arduous one. Pedro, age 58, is unable to work and support his family and it is unclear when or how he will even be able to walk again. Yet he was the principle bread winner of his family in the ever-increasingly expensive Bay Area. His wife works a night job at a factory in the East Bay and his eldest daughter, 19, has quit her college studies in order to support the family. His other daughters, ages 16 and 11 cannot and should not be expected do the same. 

The Perez family is in urgent need of financial assistance during his recovery. It is unknown whether he will be able to return to work at all, and though it is a miracle that this would even be a prospect, it will be a long time until the future is certain. Pedro and his family are asking for donations so that they can weather this difficult period amongst ever increasing expenses and ever increasing uncertainty so that a brighter future for the entire Perez family can be created from this very dark and difficult situation.