All eyes in New York were once again glued to Ground Zero when two window washers hung perilously for their lives from the 69th floor of the newly opened One World Trade Center building.
Juan Lizama and Juan Lopez dangled from the scaffolding they were working on for an hour before they were finally rescued.
More than 100 firemen responded to the emergency call and began to assess how best to rescue the men. According to reports, the two best options to get the men to safety would be to attempt to pull the scaffolding back up to the roof of the building, or cut through the three layers of glass of the building windows and pull the men inside.
The second option was safer but still risky. Fortunately, as the window washers were wearing their safety harnesses and were secure in the scaffolding even though it was tilted at a dangerously sharp angle.
As the men hung from the side of the building and the firemen proceeded with their rescue attempt, onlookers and employees from nearby buildings kept live updates via social media. Mainstream news sources also picked up the story, sending helicopters and news vans to the One World Trade Center to capture every second of the rescue.
At 2:15 p.m., the men were finally pulled to safety one by one inside the building, much to the collective relief of the many who began following the events unfold live.
The window washing company the two men work for, Upgrade Services, has issued a statement explaining that the accident was caused by equipment failure.
"The cause of the incident appears to be equipment failure of the traction hoist brake mechanism that supports one side of the rig. This caused the scaffold to drift into an almost vertical position, leaving our men stranded until a rescue could be performed," they said.
The men on the scaffolding had 14 and five years of experience under their belts and observers said it helped tremendously that the men were able to remain calm and communicate via radio with their rescuers as they hung thousands of feet off the ground.
"When you start panicking, it makes things worse... It's a very dangerous job. You have to say your prayers. You have to use your experience," said onlooker, Ramon Castro, who is also a window washer by trade and was similarly stranded on scaffolding on the 22nd and 25th floors of another skyscraper for 5 hours.
The men were taken to a local hospital where they were checked and treated for mild hypothermia.