(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-04 16:03

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.

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