Spider-Man window washers brighten kids' day at Children's Hospital

On the 13-story-high roof of St. Louis Childrens Hospital this week, the superheroes pulled on their hooded masks and disappeared over the ledge.

On the floors below, kids with conditions like asthma, sickle cell anemia, epilepsy and cancer were just waking up.

Brooklyn Lintz, 17, is on the eighth floor. She was telling a nurse how badly her hip hurt when a figure caught her eye. Is that Spider-Man?! she sat up. I have to take a picture!

Crippled by pain, Brooklyn asked the nurse if he could open the blinds all the way. He didnt already leave, did he?

Two Spider-Men returned to her window, waving and striking poses, as if webs were going to shoot from their wrists. One reached into a yellow bucket and pulled out a sponge and squeegee. He cleaned her window.

Brooklyn had spent much of the previous four days in the hospital sleeping, exhausted from pain medications. She suffers from two forms of sickle cell disease, she explained, one that deteriorates her bones and another that can cause severe pain anywhere in the body.

The pain put her in a wheelchair and caused her to miss her junior year of high school in Cape Girardeau. She had a hip replacement in January. Shes fought gallstones, dangerous blood clots and infections.

Thats so awesome, she said softly as the Spider-Men disappeared.

They are fighting villains far more real and worse than the Joker or Green Goblin.

IT'S FOR THE KIDS

More:
Spider-Man window washers brighten kids' day at Children's Hospital