Firefighters rescued two laborers hanging outside the 19th floor of an apartment building Wednesday after their scaffolding malfunctioned.
A resident of an apartment building across the street saw the men clinging to the scaffolding and called 911, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Max Walchuk.
The men, masonry workers aged 41 and 35, were rescued unharmed at about 11:30 a.m. from the Edgewater Beach Apartments, 5555 N. Sheridan Rd., Walchuk said. Firefighters pulled one of the men to safety through a window and hoisted the other onto the roof because he was not near a window.
The unidentified workers had been reinforcing the building’s walls near the roof when the motor on their scaffolding failed as they were descending, Walchuk said. One of the cables on the side of the scaffolding stopped working while the other side kept working to pull the men down.
An employee at the apartment building said the men were hanging from the scaffolding for about an hour.
