WINDOW WASHER THANKFUL TO BE ALIVE
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 -- 12:28 PM
A window washer who fell six stories is thankful to be alive.Alex Clay of Chippewa Falls survived the horrendous fall Tuesday afternoon while washing windows at the U.S. Bank building in downtown Eau Claire.
He spoke with our friends at [i]WQOW-TV[/i] Wednesday.
Clay was preparing to wash his last few windows.
"I went over the edge and realized the clip for the descending canister wasn't clipped on my belt on the bench. I just tried not to panic," he remembered.
Clay was still feeling somewhat safe because a safety line was supposed to prevent him from falling.
"I made a really hard decision, and not a decision I wanted to make, to let go. I kept falling, expecting the safety line to catch no the rope, but it never caught, never caught, never caught," he recalled.
During his freefall, Clay had a little time to think.
"On the way down, I was just thinking, you know, what if this is it? I'm dead and even if I don't die, what kind of problems am I going to have," Clay said.
Miraculously, not only did he survive, he only received injuries to his left leg.
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