Exclusive Jaret Premiere + Other Window Cleaning News

The New Star of WCR - hot off the press: 11 year old Jaret of "Jarets Window Cleaning" from Akron, Ohio maybe the youngest window cleaner going! This ultimate video in this series can be watched in high resolution from tomorrow at the Window Cleaning Resources website. Previous episodes can be found on this blog or eventually at window cleaning TV.

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Window-washer who died after fall is memorialized at accident site outside of Grand Rapids Art Museum. In her little pink bonnet, 6-month-old Peyton Cotter seemed oblivious to the rain as she smiled at her grandparents and other relatives gathered this morning on the damp sidewalk outside the Grand Rapids Art Museum. She was also blissfully unaware of the bittersweet mix of emotions as museum staff dedicated a plaque memorializing her father, Tyler Cotter. The 21-year-old new father died after falling from scaffolding as he worked 40 feet off the ground cleaning the museum's windows.
Cotter's girlfriend and his daughter's mother, Samantha Goldner, said the family continues to struggle with their grief but the plaque among the landscaping along Monroe Avenue NW declaring the area the "Tyler Cotter Memorial Walkway" means his daughter will be able to see it years from now and remember the man who shed tears of joy when she was born. "I'm glad that when people walk by, they can clearly see it," Goldner said. "It means a lot."

Pictured above: Mark Cotter, Tyler's father, spends a moment with his granddaughter Peyton Cotter outside the Grand Rapids Art Museum, at a plaque installed to commemorate Tyler. Peyton was born shortly before Tyler died in a window-washing accident at the museum.
Pictured below: Judy Cotter, Tyler's mother, spends a moment with her granddaughter Wednesday at the scene of the memorial for Tyler Cotter.

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SEATTLE - The 34-year-old window washer who survived an eight-story plunge on the job says what happened to him was a miracle. "I don't think it's luck. I know it's God (who) saved my life," said Eduardo Lozada, who spoke about last week's accident for the first time in an interview with KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Gary Horcher. Lozada said he's still not sure how it happened, but while he was washing windows at a downtown Seattle highrise Thursday morning, he suddenly started to fall. He said time seemed to slow down but that he was certain he was about to die on impact.
"I have to accept that it was my last moments, and when I let go of the ropes, I know I'm going to die. So in my mind and in my heart, I die for a minute, for seconds," he said. I say, 'OK, this is the end.' I say, 'God, forgive me, and take me.'" Lozada said he closed his eyes, and his entire life appeared like a single vision. "Everything, all your life just came through your mind, and you're able to see everything at once."
Somehow, the ropes clipped to Eduardo's harness broke his fall just before he hit the sidewalk. "I said, 'I'm alive. I feel pain. Oh my God, if I feel pain, it's because I'm alive! That's when I realized that God saved my life." Lozada suffered a badly sprained ankle and a swollen knee. The only bone he broke is in the tip of his pinky finger. He said he's never been a religious man, but his brush with death has awakened a new part of him and that every day is Thanksgiving. "For me, it's a new day every morning. I feel blessed every morning, from now on."
He said his gift is knowing that there is hope in every second. "Nobody's able to give you a new life except God, and he give me a new life. And I just hope that I do better in this one." Lozada said he can't talk about the investigation into the incident but he said that he's always felt safe on the job. He said if he were physically able, he wouldn't be afraid to go back to work. Click picture for video.

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Construction workers rescued as mishap leaves one dangling: Two construction workers were rescued Tuesday after a window washer unit collapsed on the side of the 48-story Duke Energy Center under construction uptown. One of the men dangled 40 feet in the air from a lifeline while the other scrambled to the safety of a small roof. Both were equipped with safety harnesses and were unhurt, said Carlos Vergara, safety coordinator for the Batson-Cook Co., an Atlanta-based general contractor. The two were waterproofing and caulking windows on the side of the grayish-blue tower on the southern end of uptown between South Tryon and Church streets at Stonewall.
The incident is under investigation, and the company will file an incident report with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Vergara said. It appears one of the motors that winches the platform and its steel cables up and down might have malfunctioned, he said. Workers responded by shutting down one block of Stonewall Street and rescuing the dangling worker with a cherry picker. The other worker was standing on a roof about 20 feet off the ground.

Update on Seattle Fall + Another!

Woman falls 80 feet while washing window at Grove Park Inn: Asheville — A woman washing windows at Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa today fell eight stories, but her injuries are believed to be non- life threatening. About 2:45 p.m., the employee of Hot Spring-based Sky Clean was washing windows and fell outside the Sammons wing of the inn, Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa president and CEO Craig Madison said. The woman landed on a grassy surface and was responsive and answering questions while en route to Mission Hospital. It wasn’t immediately known what caused the woman to fall. Sky Clean could not immediately be reached for comment. The windows are routinely cleaned at Grove Park once a month, Madison said. In his more than 30 years at the inn, Madison said he could not recall an accident like this.

SEATTLE - The employer of a window washer who survived an eight-story plunge from a downtown building says he's thankful the safety systems worked, saving the worker's life. "It couldn't have been any closer, so ... everything else aside, I'm 100 percent thankful," says Kevin Hansen (pictured -click for video), who owns window-washing company Morris-Hansen Enterprises. In an exclusive interview with Komo News, Hansen said he was in Bellevue when he got the call Thursday that one of his men had a fall. "You're basically just blank," he says. "You're hoping that it's a fall, somebody's up on their safety, you hope it's just a fall." And what a fall it was.
Witnesses said window washer Eduardo Lozada Castillo was screaming as he fell eight stories or more, smashing part-way through a window before continuing his fall down the side of the building toward the alleyway below. Surveillance camera footage shows his safety rope catching at the last possible instant, preventing Lozada from smashing bodily into the brick pavement. "We heard some yelling. We looked over at the window, we saw a body coming through the seventh-floor window and then he ... continued to fall," said eyewitness Robert Kleppen.
Kleppen said he thought Lozada was killed in the fall, not realizing that his safety harness stopped him inches from certain death. As it turns out, the window washer suffered only a broken pinky finger. He was taken away by ambulance and checked out at the hospital, just in case. "It's very dramatic, but the systems that they use, worked," Hansen says. Hansen says the company still hasn't figured out exactly what happened up there to cause Lozada to fall. But he says all the safety precautions were in place, and it doesn't appear Lozada did anything wrong.
In all his years in the business, Hansen says, he's never seen a fall like this. And he hopes never to see one again. Lozada was expected to return to work today - but decided he was simply too sore. His boss tells us he's now scheduled to be back on the job on Monday. Yesterdays Front Page.