Vancouver firefighters rappel down building to rescue trapped window washers

There were some heart-stopping moments Thursday afternoon for a pair of window washers trapped on a mechanical lift platform in downtown Vancouver.

Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services were called to perform a technical rescue on the building at Georgia and Homer streets around 1:45 p.m., after the workers’ platform froze midway up the building’s exterior.

Firefighters had to rappel from the top of the building to the platform, then lower the workers to a landing below.

“As you can see from the layout of the exterior where it’s not just a flat surface to it, it adds that extra layer of complexity and our highly-trained crews were able to overcome that by going to the top of the building and being able to overcome the challenges from the exterior layout and get down to those people who were basically on an immobilized platform,” VFRS Capt. Matthew Trudeau said.

“It is a very high-risk manoeuvre, and it is obviously dangerous putting crews outside the building and going down that significant distance to them, a lot of technical aspects to that to make sure everyone is safe.”

The entire rescue took an hour to complete, and firefighters said no one was injured.

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