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.

Pedro Perez Still Critical After SF Fall

A pair of San Francisco police officers look over the scene where Pedro Perez fell 11 stories onto a moving car.

Window Washer's family speaks to ABC7 news after fall (San Leandro, California) : - ABC7 News followed up on the condition of the window washer who fell on a car from an 11-story building in San Francisco. It happened nearly two weeks ago and he is still in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, but talking. His 19-year-old daughter, Monica Perez spoke only to ABC7 News.

The window washer is 58-year-old Pedro Perez and he is still in the intensive care unit at the hospital. His family said they see him improving a little every day and they too are amazed that he survived that fall. The San Leandro resident had 15 years under his belt as a window washer. That's why his family doesn't know how he managed to fall from the roof of a building on Montgomery Street, landing on a moving car. "He knows how equipment has to be set up. He knows how one little thing not being set up right, can cause an accident," Monica said.

After the fall, Perez (pictured) was helped by several pedestrians. Minutes later, a confused co-worker who mistakenly thought Perez was dead called the family to say he had passed. For about an hour the family didn't know he was alive. Monica said they didn't know "until the hospital called us and told us he was alive." The moving car he landed on helped break his fall. Since the November 21 Street accident, Perez had several operations. "He fractured his pelvic area, so it's completely shattered, and then had had internal bleeding," Monica said.

While Perez broke his right arm in several places, he legs and back were not broken. And according to the family, he suffered no major head injury. "He's not on the breathing machine anymore. He can breathe on his own. He's talking," Monica said.

The family reached out to ABC7 News because they need help. While his has medical insurance, his union, SEIU United Service Workers West, had not contacted the family directly, until Wednesday when we called the union. During our interview a union representative called to offer help. "We're probably going to put him on disability. It's in progress," Monica to the representative.

Perez has a wife and three daughters. The family remembers watching the accident on TV, in disbelief. "It's a really big fall. How does one fall from that survive and survive?" Monica said. People who witnessed the fall are still asking themselves the same question.