Safety harness saves window washer from death fall on Front St.

April 02, 2010

Alexandra Posadzki

Police say a window washer's safety harness saved his life on Friday after he fell 15 storeys while working outside a Front St. condominium as horrified bystanders looked on.

The man was rescued by fire fighters and transported to hospital after falling from the 33rd floor of the 381 Front St. highrise around 2:30 p.m.

He suffered only minor injuries, according to Toronto police, and will be home for the Easter weekend.

The worker’s lifeline saved him from sharing the same fate as the four construction workers who plunged to their deaths on Christmas Eve after the scaffolding that they were working on collapsed.

The four men were wearing safety harnesses but the harnesses were not tied off to a solid structure, said Toronto police Det. Kevin Sedore.

This is the third time in two months that a worker has been injuring by falling from a height, but deadly falls are not infrequent.

A 43-year-old construction worker died after falling from an apartment building near Victoria Park Ave. and Ellesmere Rd. in mid-February, and another worker died after falling 10 meters on the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus a month later.

In January the Ontario government appointed Tony Dean, former head of the Ontario public service, to chair a panel of labour groups and safety experts and recommend changes to Ontario’s worker protection system.

This comes after the revelation that more than 400 construction workers have died in Ontario since 1990.

The Ministry of Labour is investigating Friday’s incident.