Window Cleaning Rescues & Suspicious Deaths

The aerial ladder platform (ALP) that was brought by the department of fire and emergency services to rescue us looked like a toy from the 22nd floor where we were stranded for almost 10 hours. "The emergency services personnel and others watching us from the ground floor looked so tiny," recalled Akbar Hussain, 22, one of the two window cleaners who were stuck outside the World Trade Centre in Yeshwanthpur for a large part of Monday evening.

Window cleaners stuck outside 22nd floor rescued after 9-hour operation (Yeshwantpur, Bangalore): Duo were dangling more than 200 feet above the ground in an open-air platform for nearly nine hours before being rescued by Fire Department. Dangling in an open-air platform more than 200 feet above the ground, two labourers clung on to dear life for nearly nine hours while rescue teams figured a way to extract them to safety. The window-cleaners were stuck outside the 22nd floor of the World Trade Centre at Yeshwantpur.

Wasim Ahmed and Akbar Hussain were stranded while working in the WTC at Yeshwantpur on Monday.

Wasim Ahmed and Akbar Hussain – from Uttar Pradesh – were lowered from the roof of the 32-storey building on a pedestal at 8 a.m. in a day-long exercise to clean the glass façade of the tower that houses numerous multi-national companies and consulates. The pedestal was being manoeuvred by a machine. Around noon, the apparatus got stuck at the 22nd floor. Their colleagues tried to fix the machine, but failed. Then they tried to hoist them to the roof, but did not succeed.

When all efforts to rescue the duo failed, the Fire and Emergency Services personnel were alerted. By then, it was 5.45 p.m. The extendable ladders of the two fire tenders fell short by a long margin. The ladders could reach a height of 175 feet. Wasim says, “We were stuck for nearly nine hours and were scared out of our minds. It was a long way down. But, we were confident that the wires holding the pedestal would not break. The fact that it was only the machine that was malfunctioning and there was no problem with the ropes gave us some measure of confidence.”

Eventually around 9 p.m., officials broke glass panes on the 22nd floor and pulled the duo to safety. A police officer, who was part of the rescue operation, said, “The glass had to be broken carefully to ensure neither the duo nor those below were injured during the process. The pieces would be blown a little distance by the wind – which is dangerous as the complex houses a mall – before they hit the ground.” An official of the Fire Department said the duo were not wearing helmets or safety gear. More detail here.

Window cleaner trapped on platform outside Canberra building: A window cleaner and a mechanic had to call the fire brigade for help when they became trapped on a raised platform in Canberra on Saturday morning. The men were working on the fourth floor on the top of a building on Constitution Avenue, in Campbell, when the platform stopped moving. They called triple zero shortly after 7am.

The Emergency Services Agency said it sent the ambulance, a pumper and the Bronto Aerial Platform to help. "A firefighter was able to fix the mechanical issue of the hydraulic platform they were working on," the agency said in a statement. "ACT Fire & Rescue did not have to use its Bronto Aerial Platform. The two men have been safely lowered to the ground." No one was hurt in the incident.

He had no identification on him but now, nearly two weeks later, the OPD has identified the man as Fallbrook resident, window cleaner, Mark Andrew Slaughter, 45.

Death of Fallbrook man called ‘suspicious’ (OCEANSIDE): A man found injured on an Oceanside bike path on New Year’s Day and later died was identified Wednesday as a Fallbrook resident. Mark Andrew Slaughter, 45, died under what police are investigating as suspicious, Oceanside police Lt. Leonard Cosby said. Slaughter was found along a bike path on South Coast Highway, near Eaton Street, about 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 1, police said. He had head and face injuries, and was taken to a hospital. He died a short time later.

Cosby said an autopsy was conducted but the Medical Examiner’s Office was not able to determine what caused Slaughter’s head injuries or what caused his death. Internet sites show Mark Slaughter as owner of Focus Window Cleaning Service in Fallbrook. Investigators are asking that anyone with information about the case or about Slaughter’s movements on Jan. 1 call them at (760) 435-4892.

Police cover the body of a domestic helper who fell out of the window of an apartment in Kowloon City on Wednesday.

Indonesian maid falls to death in window-cleaning accident: An Indonesian maid fell to her death on Wednesday when she was apparently doing some cleaning work at a window of an apartment in Kowloon City. The domestic helper, a 21-year-old who bears the first name Titik, came to Hong Kong just two months ago, according to Ming Pao Daily. The accident took place at midday at a building named Elite House on Argyle Street.

A security guard said he rushed outside the building after hearing a loud thud. He saw a woman lying on the ground unconscious, prompting him to immediately call the police. When the police and medical personnel arrived, they pronounced the woman dead on the scene. Blood stains and broken pieces of a flower pot were found on the floor. The police didn’t find any suicide note on the person or inside the flat, leading them to believe that the maid may have fallen from the window accidentally.

Cheung Kit-man, chairman of Hong Kong Employment Agencies Association, said that in the past two years there had been a total of fourteen cases of domestic workers falling out of windows. Domestic workers are often not careful, he said, noting that some maids tend to lean way too out from windows when cleaning. Under current law, the Hong Kong government requires an employer to buy insurance for their foreign domestic workers. Family members of the maid are eligible for compensation, and the cost of transferring the body back to homeland will also be covered.

Spate of suicides in China still largely unexplained: The unnatural deaths of seven government officials in less than a month have raised concerns among members of the public, as the causes of some of the deaths have not been explained. Yang Xiaojun, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said only limited information has been provided from official sources, and it’s not sufficient to stop the public from speculating. He said he believes the results of investigations into the deaths are a matter of public concern and that governmental departments need to explain the causes in a timely manner.

Earlier this year, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee issued a notice requiring the public release of detailed information about deceased officials. According to a report in Southern Weekly, 112 officials committed suicide from August 2003 to April 2014, with 39 percent of those dying in their offices, 33 percent at home and the rest at parks or clubs. Hao Zhuang, security chief in Jiaohe, Jilin province, died after falling from the window of his sixth-floor office on Monday morning. The local government made a statement, saying Hao fell from the window accidentally when he was cleaning the window glass and died of critical injuries despite emergency medical treatment. No other details were available.

Also on Monday, Wang Jinwei, 50, head of the finance bureau of Enshi, Hubei province, died after falling from the roof of the residential building where he lived. No explanation for his death has been released. According to a report by Legal Evening News, officials who died of unnatural causes recently include Xiao Wensun, mayor of Liuzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, who drowned in a river on Nov 4; Zhang Jianwei, head of the disciplinary department of China Nation Offshore Oil Corporation, who died in his office on Nov 3; Wang Pin’gang, senior vice-president of China Shenhua Energy Co, who died on Oct 29, the same day the former head of the land and resources department in Xiamen, Fujian province, surnamed Lin, hanged himself in a park; and Chen Hongqiao, president of Guosen Securities, who committed suicide at his home on Oct 23.