Pair rescued from building’s side

Firefighters rescued two workers who were left dangling in their harnesses several stories above the ground, after their motorized scaffold malfunctioned Monday morning alongside a nine-story office building in Newport Beach.

“My kids always warn me in the morning to be careful,” Mark Dunn, 44, one of the rescued workers, said afterward, noting that he had known of the dangers of his job but didn’t think anything would happen to him.

He and Wes Malone, 27, were left dangling when the swing stage dropped from underneath their feet. The two workers were performing maintenance repairs to the building at 1401 Avocado Ave., near Fashion Island, which were needed because of the recent heavy rains.

Dunn said they were working their way down the side of the building when one side of the platform didn’t stop as planned. He said he hit the kill switch and the whole thing stopped.

An emergency crew instructed the men to use the emergency switch to bring the platform down.

“The left side went quicker than the right and wouldn’t stop. I tried the kill switch again, but it didn’t work,” Dunn said. “We were swinging off the rope pretty much.”

When a 911 call was placed shortly after 11 a.m., a Fashion Island fire engine crew already was on scene for a medical aid response, according to Jennifer Schulz, spokeswoman for the Newport Beach Fire Department.

Firefighters used emergency lines to pull the men up from the roof one by one, Schulz said. They had been dangling for five to 10 minutes.

“The engine crew went to the roof to secure the emergency lines and were able to pull the men up and over one by one,” Schulz said.

On the ground, Malone iced his hand and told firefighters it was his only injury.

The only pain Dunn reported was discomfort from the circulation being cut off at his legs by the rescue harness.

Although scares like this are a possibility with the job, it’s been eight years since a scaffold has malfunctioned at their company, Industrial Glass Service, Malone said.

“It’s not bad, but it could be the adrenaline,” Malone said, referring to his hand. “If it hurts more tomorrow I can go have it checked out. My company has good benefits.”

“It was exciting in a negative way,” he added. “I definitely won’t be going back up tomorrow.”