A lurch and a lifeline 37 floors up

As firefighters crashed through the windows and engaged in a delicate and lengthy rescue operation, office workers rushed to the windows of adjacent buildings to watch. Passersby gathered along the edge of the cordoned-off streets while firefighters shouted for them to take cover. Glass from the broken window cascaded down and smashed against the concrete, the shards, in the words of one witness, “glittering in the sunlight.’’

Firefighters rushed inside, took elevators to the upper floors, and broke out two windows in the all-glass building. They fed ropes down to the window washers, Kyle Redmond and Julio Ortiz, who stood on a metal platform slanted at a shaky 45-degree angle. Tethered to rigging attached to the roof, they waited for their rescue.

First one man was dragged in through a window, and, seven minutes later, the second was drawn to safety. In total, the high-rise rescue took 20 minutes.

“It seemed like a week,’’ said Lieutenant John Soares, one of the firefighters on the 37th floor. “They were shaken and rightfully so. They just wanted to get off the scaffolding as soon as they could. They were thankful and grateful.’’

The drama that unfolded in the city’s Financial District yesterday morning highlights the nearly unthinkable dangers of a job that has become part of the urban landscape, so common that its risks can sometimes be forgotten.

Boston Deputy Fire Chief Robert Calobrisi said the workers were in “great danger of falling out.’’

“It’s a perilous task,’’ said Calobrisi, “especially when you are up that high, but technical rescues are part of ongoing training.’’

Redmond was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening and was discharged from the emergency room yesterday afternoon. Ortiz did not suffer serious injuries. The men work for Harvard Maintenance Inc., a national company that services office buildings and is often contracted by the State Street building, known as Exchange Place.

“It was tough, real tough, to get the call,’’ said Redmond’s wife, Karen, adding that her husband was now “resting comfortably’’ at home in Walpole.

The near-tragedy began early yesterday when the Fire Department responded to an emergency call at about 9:15, firefighters said.

The metal scaffold underneath Redmond and Ortiz had malfunctioned, causing one side of the platform to drop 20 feet.

David Surprenant, a contractor working on the 38th floor, said the men tried to get the attention of office workers inside.

“They were yelling for someone to call 911,’’ Surprenant said, recounting what he was told by an office worker a floor below.

Jose Diaz, 21, who works at a building nearby, watched the scene from Liberty Square.

“I saw two guys hanging up there,’’ Diaz said. “I am glad they were saved. I wouldn’t be up there if it were me.’’

Two scaffolding mechanics arrived at the site at about 3:30 p.m. and raised the metal walkway back to its place on the roof, Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said. Authorities are investigating what caused the metal platform to fail, he said.

Two workplace safety inspectors from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration also responded to the scene earlier yesterday to investigate, said spokesman Ted Fitzgerald.

According to the safety administration’s listing of workplace safety investigations, Harvard Maintenance has been the subject of only two inquiries since 2004, one in Manhattan and one in Minnesota. Details were not immediately available.

John Coyne, whose main business is hanging signs for the Banner and Flag Co. of Boston, is acutely aware of the perils one faces hanging hundreds of feet above the ground.

“I hate it when I hear about these stories,’’ he said. “It’s scary.’’

Coyne did not witness the rescue, but said that based on a description provided by a Globe reporter, it appeared that once the scaffolding became unbalanced, the workers had to rely on their safety harnesses to keep them from falling.

He said the scaffolding could have failed because the two men did not perfectly synchronize their efforts as they lowered the two-motor scaffold or because a guide rope became tangled inside the motor or a rope slipped free when it should not have.

Coyne said that if installed properly, the safety harness should have been anchored separately from the scaffolding. He said a proper safety harness will save a window washer’s life if the scaffolding underneath suddenly gives way.

“We don’t consider ourselves crazy,’’ he said of himself and others who stalk the roofs of commercial buildings in downtown Boston. “You are in control of your own safety. If you do things properly and check and double check, you should be fine. If you prepare properly, you will be all right.’’

But people who work at great heights choose it, Corey said.

“It doesn’t strike me as something you would do if you didn’t like it,’’ he said.

John Ellement of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Michele Morgan Bolton contributed to this report. Laura J. Ulloa can be reached at lulloa@globe.com.