Winnipeg Window Washer Fall

A window-washer wash seriously injured after falling while working at the Cambridge Gardens apartments at 850 Cambridge St.

Window washer stable after fall: A window washer who plunged between seven and eight stories while cleaning a River Heights apartment building is in stable condition, his employer says. The cleaner fell around 3 p.m. Wednesday while working at a 10-storey complex at 850 Cambridge Ave., and he was taken to the Health Sciences Centre in critical condition, where he remained the following morning. "At the moment, he's at HSC, and he's stable. He's got no broken bones," said Jim St. Godard, the owner of Class A Service Ltd., adding he had no other information about his employee's injuries. "We're concerned for him and his family and hoping the best for him." The employee, who has not been named, has worked for the St. Mary's Road business for "several years," St. Godard said. He couldn't say how the incident unfolded, saying it was under investigation.

A witness told the Winnipeg Sun that the window washer's rope broke, causing him to fall all the way down through a ground-floor overhead window and into the complex’s lobby. “His eyes were open and he was sitting up — just bleeding from his head, profusely,” James Warren said at the scene, adding the injured man, apparently “in shock,” did not speak. “He was just a guy sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor of the lobby. It was pretty hard to believe he was conscious.” Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health is investigating and the division's executive director declined to comment on the specifics of the incident. "As we do with all serious workplace accidents, we immediately dispatched an investigator to make sure nothing is disturbed," said Joanna Guerra. As part of the probe, Guerra said investigators will speak to witnesses, take pictures and measurements as well as examine equipment. "It's quite an in-depth investigation," she said. The focus is on trying to prevent similar accidents in the future, Guerra said, although Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health has the ability to send files to the Crown's office for possible prosecution.

Window washer badly hurt in fall - Man rushed to hospital in critical condition: A man was in critical condition in hospital on Wednesday night after falling about eight storeys from a Winnipeg apartment building while washing windows. The shocking mishap occurred about 3 p.m. at the 10-storey Cambridge Gardens in River Heights, when — according to a witness — a rope used by the commercial crew member broke, causing him to fall all the way down through a ground-floor overhead window and into the complex’s lobby. “He landed there — he went straight through,” James Warren, visiting his grandmother who lives at the building, told the Winnipeg Sun while pointing to the broken glass awning near the front entrance. Warren added that he passed through a surreal scene in the lobby “about a minute after” the accident, and before an ambulance arrived. “His eyes were open and he was sitting up — just bleeding from his head, profusely,” he said, adding the injured man, apparently “in shock,” did not speak. “He was just a guy sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor of the lobby. It was pretty hard to believe he was conscious.”

A co-worker called for an ambulance, which took the man to Health Sciences Centre. Staff Sgt. J. Anderlic confirmed that the man remained in critical but stable condition. “He’s got some lower-body injuries,” he said. Police and provincial workplace safety officers investigated at the scene at Cambridge Street and Carter Avenue, near Pan Am Pool, long after the man was removed from the lobby. The floor below the smashed awning was strewn with broken glass, mixed with blood. Two running shoes remained on the floor. Warren said he had been told by another window-washing crew member that a “rope just snapped” above the worker, leading to the fall. Warren said the injured man was fortunate to fall where he did, less than a metre from a spiked, iron barrier in the lobby. “About another foot over,” he said, “and he could have impaled himself.”

Window washer falls 7 storeys from building: A professional window washer remains in critical condition in a Winnipeg hospital after he fell at least seven storeys from an apartment building in the city's River Heights neighbourhood. Emergency crews and workplace safety investigators spent hours late Wednesday afternoon at the Cambridge Gardens building on Cambridge Street, just south of Grant Avenue. An atrium window near the main entrance to the apartment complex appeared to be smashed. Inside the building, a pool of blood and bits of broken glass were visible in the lobby.

John Huizinga, who lives in the building, told CBC News the rope that was supposed to support the window washer appeared to be broken. "It was really a heavy thud," Huizinga said of the man's fall. "We're seven floors up, and it was like it was [happening] right below us." After falling along the side of the building, the window washer fell through the atrium window and landed on the floor of the lobby. "He started yelling, you know, 'Get me out of here, get me out of here,' but nobody could get him out of there," Huizinga said. James Warren said he could only watch in horror as the injured window washer sat in the lobby, his face covered in blood. "I wished I could do something for the guy, but I don't know first aid or any of that stuff," he said. "That might be something I might look into doing, just in case I ever see something like that again — I won't feel so useless."

Police officers inspect the scene of an accident at an apartment block on Cambridge Street Wednesday where a window washer's rope broke, causing him to fall eight storeys into a solarium.

Window washer survives eight-storey fall: A window washer is lucky to be alive after falling eight storeys and smashing through a glass solarium that probably saved his life, said a witness to the workplace accident Wednesday. The window washer was reported in critical condition after a fall from Cambridge Gardens at 850 Cambridge St. just after 3 p.m. Winnipeg police remained on the scene with Workplace Safety and Health investigators long after emergency crews transported to man to hospital.

James Warren said he was leaving his grandmother’s apartment when he saw the worker just after his fall and minutes before emergency crews responded to help. "He was covered in blood and glass. He was awake and he was sitting up but he was obviously in shock," said Warren."His co-worker said he'd crushed a leg. He was bleeding profusely from the head and mouth." Warren said the worker just missed being impaled on a picket fence around the plants in the solarium by the foyer. "If you're inside, you would have seen the picket fence and he probably missed it by half a foot. He's lucky to be alive."

The worker was part of a three-man window-washing crew. The solarium that broke the worker's fall juts out perhaps a metre from one small portion of the front of the block. The back of the building is covered in concrete, with a row of metal trash bins lined up by the building. A fall there would likely have been fatal, the witness said. The accident sobered residents who expressed horror at the fall. One resident who gave her name as Maureen pointed to the solarium window on the ground floor and, like Warren, reported the glassed-in structure had broken the worker's fall.

Another resident who arrived home after work said the accident spooked her because it happened a day after she saw a window washer at work, hanging from a harness outside her office window. Residents, said the woman, had recently received a notice from building managers that window washers would be at work outside their apartments. "I was happy when we got the letters they were washing the windows but to hear something like this? That's sad," the woman said.

Window washer safety rules lax in Manitoba:  A Steinbach businessman says Manitoba needs to improve its safety regulations for window washers. Kris Jennings says the fall of a washer on Wednesday from a Winnipeg apartment building is an accident that has been waiting to happen. "It was only a matter of time for one of these window washers," he said. After falling along the side of the building from between the seventh and eighth storeys, the window washer went through an atrium window and landed on the floor of the lobby. He remains in critical condition in a Winnipeg hospital.

Jennings briefly worked for a window washing company in Winnipeg before opening his own company, Axis Coatings. He says the majority of Winnipeg window washing companies don't give employees enough training to be safe on the job. Most of it is from on-the-job training. And the focus of most training seems to be about having two anchor points for the ropes. However, the condition of the equipment is overlooked, Jennings said.

His employees are certified with extensive training on how to be safe in high and dangerous places, he said. "You need to be trained and that means, you know, going into a classroom and doing physical training on ropes, not being trained on the job," he said. "You need to be in a classroom setting, and in a controlled environment to learn how to do this stuff." Winnipeg Police Services and Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health are investigating Wednesday's fall.