Two workers narrowly escaped death after they were trapped in the window of world trade center

New York emergency crews rescued two workers who were trapped in a window-washing scaffold dangling perilously at the 69th floor of the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center building in lower Manhattan, authorities said Wednesday.Rescue workers tore through nearly two-inch thick, double-paned glass on thebuilding to pull the workers to safety about2:15 p.m., authorities said.The men were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center to be treated for mild hypothermia, police said.The workers had been tethered inside the apparatus, the city's fire department said earlier."I see two heads dangling over the scaffolding and one of the guys -- they just keep looking down," Reginald Moye, who watched the incident unfold from the 24th floor of a nearby hotel, ."They look like they're maybe five feet in themiddle of the scaffold, hanging."How are scaffold workers tethered?2 worker trapped on WTC scaffoldPhotos: Scaffolding rescue at WTCTelevision images showed the rig danglingprecipitously at a sharp angle.Images on Twitter from the fire departmentshowed the scaffold as seen from inside the tower, with New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty in the distance.Officials said New York Police Department emergency services units had been able tocommunicate with the two window washers via radio.The men worked for a company called Upgrade, according to Erica Dumas, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.Authorities said a cable on one side of the scaffold snapped, leaving it hanging by only one cable."They were going up, washing the windows, and I was amazed at the view," Moye said. "Wow. Such a dangerous job. So, suddenly, I didn't see it collapse, but once I looked over and said, something is wrong, it was dangling."Officials at Tractel, the company that designed, built and installed the window-washing rig, had no comment.Tractel also designed the scaffolding that collapsed at the Hearst Tower in Manhattan in June 2013, according to aerial and footage of both scenes. in the 2013 incident,two workers were rescued more than 550 feetabove the streets of midtown Manhattan after their scaffolding buckled near the top of the tower, fire officials said. The workers, who spent 90 minutes dangling near the top of the building, suffered no injuries. Firefighters cut through a double-paned window on the 45th floor and brought the workers in through the newly created hole. At 1,776 feet tall, the One World Trade Center building surpassed Chicago's 1,451-foot Willis Tower as the nation's tallest building.