High-angle rescue team plucks 2 workers from building
Published: January 10, 2007
Hector Rivera and Rosalio Portilla comforted each other as they dangled from a rope outside a beachside hotel here Tuesday after their scaffolding collapsed.
The men plunged two floors after their equipment failed and both hung from the side of the Harbor Beach Resort at 701 S. Atlantic Ave., like two rag dolls.
The men, employees of Complete Property Service in Port Orange, were replacing the balconies on the northern side of the building, said Leandro Lopez, foreman at the job site.
Firefighters at the scene said Portilla’s right leg was mangled during the fall, sliced up and bleeding profusely, while Rivera broke his nose and had a cut across his scalp.
Daytona Beach Fire Department’s High Angle Rescue Team brought the men down and they were whisked away to Halifax Medical Center in EVAC ambulances. While rescue team members Jeff Harbuck, Ryan Bigger and Joe Bianco readied their equipment to retrieve the two construction workers, firefighter-paramedic Loraine Becker went to the sixth floor of the resort to make sure Rivera and Portilla were alert and conscious.
“They were totally calm and confident,” said Becker, a 22 year-veteran with Daytona Beach Fire. “They seemed comfortable on the ropes. They were talking to each other (in Spanish) and they seemed to be hugging to give each other support.”
Onlookers in the parking lot of neighboring SunSplash Park were riveted as they watched firefighters rescue Rivera and Portilla.
“I looked up and I just saw two men hanging from the side of the building,” said Carl Perkins of Kennebunkport, Maine. ”I figured someone’s gonna get hurt.
”I heard them holler a little. But then I saw them hanging from the ropes and I thought they would be all right,” Perkins said.
Rivera was treated at Halifax and released, according to a nursing supervisor. Portilla was not listed as a patient, the supervisor said Tuesday night.
It’s not clear what prompted the scaffolding to collapse, Fire Lt. John King said, but officials with the Occupational Safety Health Administration are expected to investigate.
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