Falling from the 47th floor and surviving with only minor injuries sounds like a miraculous adventure. This is exactly what happened to New York window washer Alcides Moreno. Alcides and his younger brother Edgar set out to clean the windows of a luxurious 47-story skyscraper in Manhattan. Everything was going smoothly until the 16-foot platform they were standing on suddenly detached from its supports.
The cable on the left side, where Edgar was standing, snapped first, causing Edgar to plummet nearly 150 meters (about 500 feet) and land in a narrow alley. By the time he reached the ground, he was estimated to be falling at about 200 km/h (124 mph). Unfortunately, there was no chance of saving him.
Shortly after Edgar fell, the platform completely gave way, and Alcides fell along with it. When firefighters arrived at the scene, they found Alcides in a pile of twisted metal. To their astonishment, he was still breathing. They quickly handed him over to paramedics, who rushed him to the hospital.
Statistics show that only half of the people who fall from the third floor survive. The survival rate for falls from the tenth floor is almost zero. However, Alcides survived, despite sustaining numerous fractures and injuries. His fall was somewhat slowed by the building scaffolding, and he received timely medical assistance. After spending nearly three weeks in a coma, Alcides woke up in a hospital room next to his wife, Rosario.