From: guvsgusgus@gerbet.net   
      
   Window washer who fell 47 floors awake By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated   
   Press Writer   
   Thu Jan 3, 7:40 PM ET   
      
      
      
   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 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.   
      
   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.   
      
   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.   
      
   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."   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)