Window-Cleaning Platform Gives Way at 48th Floor

Worker clings to 'raised edge' until firefighters arrive
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2014 5:30 PM CDT
Window-Cleaning Platform Dangles at 48th Floor
Window cleaners work on an office tower.   (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Think your work day sucked? Consider the two window cleaners who were working on the 48th floor of a building in Vienna, Austria, when their platform "slipped" a hair-raising 45 degrees, the Telegraph reports. The pair was stuck at about 470 feet in strong winds outside the DC Tower 1—with one holding desperately to a "raised edge of the platform," the Guardian reports—until firefighters came and secured them with cables. Ushered into a ventilation shaft, one was in shock but neither had suffered injuries. It's happened before, too: A pair of cleaners had their scaffold collapse last year at the 44th floor of the Hearst Building in Manhattan, and hung on until rescued by firefighters. (More Vienna stories.)

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