City firefighters needed a truck with a 75-foot ladder to get to the 7th floor and then free the 43-year-old worker from two steel reinforcing rods on Saturday, Dec. 10, responders said.
The rods went through his chest and hip, miraculously missing vital organs and leaving him suspended in the air, they said.
The worker was conscious and alert as his rescuers carefully lowered him to the ground from the seventh floor of the apartment building under construction on the old Armoy site on Market Street between Rosa Parks Boulevard and Pennington Street.
He was then rushed to nearby St. Joseph’s University Medical Center with a chunk of metal still in him, responders said.
The most recent report listed him in critical but stable condition, authorities said.
The heroes included more two dozen members of the Paterson Fire Department’s Rescue Company 2, Ladder Companies 1 and 2, Engine Company 6 and EMS Company 6 – as well as paramedics from St. Joe’s.
OSHA is investigating the incident.
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