A miracle is an event that does not fit natural or scientific laws, which may seem almost supernatural. What happened to Alcides Moreno on December 7, 2007, certainly seems to fit that bill. The Ecuadorian, 49, fell from the 47th floor while cleaning the windows of the Solow Tower building in Manhattan's Upper East side of New York City, US.
Mr Moreno revealed during Morgan Freeman’s “The Story of God” series how the terrifying ordeal played out.
He said in 2017: “I woke up in the morning took my car in and commuted from New Jersey.
“I got to the building and took the elevator all the way to the top – 47 storeys – and then climb onto the platform.
“We just began to lower the platform when one of the cables snapped.
Alcides Moreno fell from the 47th floor of the Solow Tower building (Image: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
Alcides Moreno is what doctors called a "miracle" (Image: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
I think God saved me, but I want to ask him ‘why me? What happened? Why?’ Maybe it was a second chance to keep going
Alcides Moreno
“I just grabbed the scaffold and held on until another cable snapped.”
Mr Moreno then plunged 472ft, surviving only thanks to the platform he was working on getting lodged against a neighbouring building.
He added: “The paramedics, they found me right in the middle, the scaffold snapped in half and was lodged between the two buildings.
“It was right in the middle, they picked me up from there and took me to the hospital.
“I didn’t wake up from a coma until December 24,
