| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
04 Jan 2008 12:00:11 PM |
| Object: |
Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22502580/?GT1=10755
Window washer talking after 47-story fall
'If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one,' says doctor
updated 8:46 a.m. ET Jan. 4, 2008
NEW YORK - {AP} Doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A
window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan
skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk
again. Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a Dec. 7
scaffolding collapse that killed his brother.
Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian
Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced Thursday that his
recovery has been astonishing. He is scheduled to undergo his 10th
surgery Friday.
He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on
Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since
the accident.
His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses
who kept him alive.
"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's president, described Moreno's
condition when he arrived for treatment 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. His brain was bleeding. Everything was bleeding, it seemed.
Miraculous recovery
In those first critical hours, doctors pumped 24 units of donated
blood into his body — about twice his entire blood volume.
They gave him plasma and platelets and a drug to stimulate clotting
and stop the hemorrhaging. They inserted a catheter into his brain to
reduce swelling and cut open his abdomen to relieve pressure on his
organs.
Moreno was at the edge of consciousness when he was brought in.
Doctors sedated him, performed a tracheotomy and put him on a
ventilator.
His condition was so unstable, doctors worried that even a mild jostle
might kill him, so they performed his first surgery without moving him
to an operating room.
Nine orthopedic operations followed to piece together his broken body.
Yet, even when things were at their worst, the hospital's staff
marveled at his luck.
Incredibly, Moreno's head injuries were relatively minor, for a fall
victim. Neurosurgeon John Boockvar said the window washer also managed
to avoid a paralyzing spinal cord injury, even though he suffered a
shattered vertebra.
"If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one," said the
hospital's chief of surgery, Dr. Philip Barie.
New York-Presbyterian has treated people who have tumbled from great
heights before, including a patient who survived a 19-story fall, but
most of those tales end sadly.
The death rate from even a three-story fall is about 50 percent, Barie
said. People who fall more than 10 stories almost never survive.
"Forty-seven floors is virtually beyond belief," Pardes said.
Science may never be able to explain what protected Moreno when the
platform he and his brother were using atop an Upper East Side
apartment tower broke free and fell to the ground.
Edgar Moreno, 30, of Linden N.J., died instantly. He was buried in
Ecuador, where the brothers were from.
'I didn't know he could speak'
Alcides Moreno, whom his wife described as strong and athletic, may
have clung to his scaffolding platform as it dropped. It is possible
that the metal platform offered him some protection, although doctors
said they were unsure how.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing.
Rosario Moreno said her husband was conscious during the fall but
remembers little. She said he didn't need to be told that his brother
had died.
The injured window washer spent about three weeks on a ventilator,
unable to speak, and initially his only means of communicating with
his family was by touch.
"He wanted to touch my face, touch my hair," Rosario Moreno said.
She would take his hand and hold it to her skin. Then, one day, he
reached out and touched one of the nurses.
Rosario Moreno said that when she heard about it, she jokingly
lectured her husband to keep his hands to himself. He answered in
English, "What did I do?"
"It stunned me," she said, "because I didn't know he could speak."
There is still a rough road ahead for the tough New Jersey man, a
father of three children, ages 14, 8 and 6.
He was scheduled to undergo another spinal surgery on Friday, and he
will need another operation to reconstruct his abdominal wall. There
is a chance he will develop complications, even life-threatening ones,
during the months ahead.
Lifelong injuries
Moreno will remain in the hospital for at least a few more weeks,
doctors said. After that, he will need extensive physical
rehabilitation. It may be another year before doctors know how much he
will improve.
The medical staff was guarded Thursday about his prospects for
returning to a normal life. Doctors said they believe he will walk,
but they also suggested that some of his injuries are likely to be
lifelong.
"We're optimistic for a very substantial recovery, eventually," Barie
said
Rosario Moreno said she knows this much for sure: His days as a window
washer are over.
"I told him," she said, "you're not going back to work there."
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| User: "AZ Nomad" |
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| Title: Re: Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
04 Jan 2008 12:23:57 PM |
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On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:00:11 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling
me that it just wasn't his time."
and of course, he's thanking his god for arranging for the fall.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
19 Jan 2008 10:41:57 AM |
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On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:23:57 -0000, AZ Nomad
<aznomad.2@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:00:11 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling
me that it just wasn't his time."
and of course, he's thanking his god for arranging for the fall.
That never occurrs to them, I'm sorry to say.
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| User: "Mike Painter" |
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| Title: Re: Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
19 Jan 2008 04:02:10 PM |
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stoney wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:23:57 -0000, AZ Nomad
<aznomad.2@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:00:11 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling
me that it just wasn't his time."
and of course, he's thanking his god for arranging for the fall.
That never occurrs to them, I'm sorry to say.
It could have simply arranged it so the fall did not happen and followed the
story of the widows mite.
If a person knew a plane was going to crash and allowed it to happen so he
could save a single passenger, he would be castigated.
Yet they praise their god for this.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
22 Jan 2008 10:24:35 AM |
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On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:02:10 GMT, "Mike Painter"
<mddotpainter@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
stoney wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:23:57 -0000, AZ Nomad
<aznomad.2@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:00:11 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling
me that it just wasn't his time."
and of course, he's thanking his god for arranging for the fall.
That never occurrs to them, I'm sorry to say.
It could have simply arranged it so the fall did not happen and followed the
story of the widows mite.
The hurricane didn't hit Pensacola, FL, 'IPU' be praised.
If a person knew a plane was going to crash and allowed it to happen so he
could save a single passenger, he would be castigated.
Yet they praise their god for this.
Of course! Their daemonic delusion didn't smite them. Its all about
*them.*
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| User: "Don Martin" |
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| Title: Re: Window washer talking after 47-story fall |
04 Jan 2008 05:55:00 PM |
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On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:23:57 -0000, AZ Nomad <aznomad.2@PremoveOBthisOX.COM>
wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:00:11 -0800, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:
"Thank God for the miracle that we had," she said. "He keeps telling
me that it just wasn't his time."
and of course, he's thanking his god for arranging for the fall.
...on top of his late brother.
#2278 If you can't be a dirty old man, what is the point of being an old man?
Through a jaundiced eye darkly--rheum with a view.
The Squeeky Wheel http://home.comcast.net/~drdonmartin/
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