Window cleaner Marcel, together with his colleague Dave, was stuck at 30 meters high on the facade of a TU building in Eindhoven for more than two hours yesterday afternoon. “It was not pleasant, in such a small container in the burning sun and wind.” When the men pressed the button to go down around two o’clock, nothing happened. Finally, the fire brigade had to free them.
Marcel is overjoyed to have solid ground under his feet again. As a window cleaner, he has been trapped before, but never this long and this high. It was a long time, spending a few hours together in such a bucket, says Marcel. The men killed the time talking, talking on the phone and looking down. Marcel was not scared, but fun was different: “I don’t really like small spaces and then you want to get out and you can’t. Fortunately, we got water from the fire brigade.”
“Happy to be back with both feet on the ground”
His younger colleague Dave mostly looks back on it soberly: “I think when you’re older you worry about it more.” Dave wasn’t afraid: “It was very hot upstairs though, so I’m quite happy to be back with both feet on the ground.”
Dave was upstairs on the phone a lot with the mechanics, the university’s technical department and the fire brigade. “It was quite a circus downstairs,” says his colleague Marcel. Because the window cleaners who were stuck attracted many students who came to take a look. “Normally I pay for an attraction and now it was myself,” he says, laughing.
First recover with a cold beer
The men will just go back to work tomorrow: “But not outside, that’s been going better for me for a while,” says Marcel. But as soon as necessary, he will still just go back outside: “We are here all year and it will be necessary anyway.” Colleague Dave will first recover at home with a cold beer and tomorrow he too will just go back to work.
Source: Omroep Brabant
Translator: Martijn
