News

NEW YORK, NY December 07, 2007 —City buildings officials say scaffolding falls are down dramatically this year, but that's no consolation for the families of two Ecuadorian immigrants, who fell this morning from a high rise on the Upper East Side, killing one and seriously injuring the other.

Fire Department officials say the two, who were brothers, were washing windows of the East 66th Street building. They say their scaffold wasn't properly secured to the building, and it collapsed when they stepped on to it. They fell 43 stories to a plaza below.

In 2006, 43 construction workers died on the job in New York, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The death toll was up 87 percent from 2005, when 23 people died.