Window Cleaner Falls 47 Storeys ... And Lives ; ED HARRIS

Jan 04, 06:02 PM

In what is being dubbed the miracle on 66th street, Alcides Moreno, a 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant, plummeted almost 500 feet when scaffolding collapsed, in a fall that killed his brother.

Doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center today described Mr Moreno's recovery since the fall on 7 December as astonishing. He has movement in all his limbs, is breathing on his own, and on Christmas Day, he spoke for the first time since the accident.

His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses.

"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling me that it just wasn't his time." Dr Herbert Pardes, the hospital president, described the father of three's condition when he arrived as "a complete disaster".

Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in several places.

He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column, and his brain was bleeding.

Doctors inserted a catheter into his brain to reduce swelling and cut open his abdomen to relieve pressure on his organs. His condition was so unstable, doctors performed his first surgery without moving him to an operating room. Nine orthopaedic operations followed.

Incredibly, Moreno's head injuries were relatively minor for a fall victim.

Neurosurgeon John Boockvar said the cleaner also avoided a paralysing spinal cord injury, even though he had a shattered vertebra.

"If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one," said the hospital's chief of surgery, Dr Philip Barie.

He added that the death rate from even a three-storey fall is about one in two, while people who fall more than 10 stories almost never survive.

Mr Moreno and his brother were on a platform next to an Upper East Side apartment tower when it broke free. Edgar Moreno, 30, died instantly and has been buried in Ecuador.

Rosario Moreno said her husband was conscious during the fall but remembers little. He spent about three weeks on a ventilator, unable to speak. Then, one day, he reached out and touched one of the nurses.

Mrs Moreno said that when she heard about it, she told her husband to keep his hands to himself. "What did I do?" he answered in English. "It stunned me," she said, "because I didn't know he could speak." Mr Moreno, from New Jersey, will remain in the hospital for at least a few more weeks, doctors said, and will need extensive physical rehabilitation at home. It may be another year before they know how much he will improve..

(c) 2008 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Window Cleaner Falls 47 Storeys ... And Lives ; ED HARRIS
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