Firefighters stage dramatic rescue after scaffold breaks, leaving two workers dangling
For an hour Wednesday afternoon, two men who were working on the east side of a Hallandale Beach condo were left suspended by their harnesses in the air after the scaffold that they were on partially broke.
At 3 p.m., Fire Rescue crews were called about two workers who were trapped at the sixth floor of the Hemispheres Condominium at 1950 South
Ocean Drive. A cable that supports the scaffold broke, Broward Sheriff’s Office Fire Rescue Chief Michael Kane said, leaving it hanging at an angle and the two men stranded 70 feet above ground.
Rescue crews spent nearly an hour determining whether they would rescue the two men by raising a ladder-truck bucket to them or by lowering rescuers down to them from the roof.
By shortly after 4 p.m., crews rescued one worker by attaching a harness to his harness and lowering him to the ground while rescue crews used a ladder truck with a bucket to bring down the other, Kane said. Both were not injured.
Television images captured one worker standing on the end of the tilted scaffold with his back against the condo wall, his right arm gripping a cable above his head. A rescuer walked slowly down the condo wall from the roof, back to the ground, holding onto ropes with other rescuers watching from above. After the rescuer approached the first worker and attached him to the harness, the rescuer and worker were lowered in tandem.
Several minutes later, the second worker who was standing on the other end of the scaffold, which was nearly at a 90-degree angle, backed into the ladder truck’s bucket and was lowered down, the video shows.