Reviewed by: Pat Byington
“Low frequency, high risk” MFRD recounts daring rescue on tallest building in the state
Reading time: 3 minutes
It was barely 1PM on Monday when Mobile Fire-Rescue (MFRD) got the call that a window washer was dangling from the tallest building in the state.
By 1:45PM, he was safely on the roof.
We sat down with MFRD’s Jeff Haller and he recounted the daring rescue, beat-for-beat.
“This is a big call”
It’s not every day MFRD gets a high-angle rescue call. But that’s where a crew of about 20 first responders found themselves on Monday, July 29.
“As you may know, the RSA Battle House tower is the tallest building in Alabama, and it definitely is a distinctive icon on the city skyline. And so when you hear a call like that come over the scanner, everybody’s here and you know, ‘Okay, this is it.'”
Jeff Haller, MFRD
A crew of three window washers were cleaning the RSA Tower in downtown Mobile when an equipment malfunction stranded one near the 33rd floor.
“He wasn’t injured and wasn’t in imminent danger of falling or anything like that. He was just unable to make forward progress and unable to make upward progress or downward progress. And so he knew, it seems that his best option is to just wait.”
Jeff Haller, MFRD
Crews got to work immediately, first assessing the situation from the ground before making their way up to the 35th floor. There, they crafted a kind of pulley system to yank the washer back inside.
“With pulleys, you can gain a tremendous mechanical advantage to make it so you can lift hundreds of pounds a single person. Of course, we have more than one person, so we have, it’s called a haul team, and they set up this pulley system.”
Jeff Haller, MFRD
Haller explained that the pulley system only goes up. So if crews were to drop the rope somehow, the washer wouldn’t have moved, removing the risk of dropping him.
After some pulling and yanking, the washer could scramble to the roof of the 33rd floor and walk inside the building through a window. Paramedics on the scene say he was miraculously uninjured.
A happy ending all around.
“It worked like clockwork, it was beautiful. Everybody walked away and went home safely.”
Brandon Jackson, District 1 Fire Chief
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