Window washer falls 60 feet from San Francisco high rise

SAN FRANCISCO --

The man suffered critical injuries, but he was conscious, and the driver was not injured, police said.

Witnesses described seeing a blue streak and the man's shadow as he fell and then hearing shattering glass as he hit the car and then rolled onto the ground. The roof of the car, a green Toyota Camry, was smashed in, and the rear windshield shattered.

Bianca Bahman, who was on the corner where the man fell, said she looked up to see his shadow and ran for cover.

"As he was coming down, he was definitely screaming," Bahman, 31, a pre-medical student at San Francisco State University who was on her way to the gym, said. "It all happened so quickly. It was so instantaneous."

The man, identified by police only as window washer, was moving equipment on the roof of a bank building in the heart of San Francisco's financial district and not on a window-washing platform when he fell, San Francisco police Sgt. Danielle Newman said. The platform was on the ground at the side of the building, and cables were hanging from its sides. It was not clear whether the man was setting the platform up, but he was working with a partner, police said.

Sam Hartwell, 56, of San Rafael, said he was walking to the building the man fell from for a meeting when he saw something blue falling.

"I heard the loud thud and the shattering of the back of the car," he said. "At that point, I realized it was a body."

He and about 20 other people ran to the man, who was on his back. The man was lucid, though he was bleeding.

"He understood we were with him," Hartwell said.

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Window washer falls 60 feet from San Francisco high rise