Americana: Fantastic Fall

The week's medal for coolness in a crisis goes to Ned Harris, owner of the Atlas Window Cleaning Contractors, who was plying his trade outside the 20th floor of Honolulu's Chateau Waikiki when the rope holding up his window chair broke.

Harris fell four stories before he was able to grab another rope dangling nearby. The rope burned his hands, but he hung on as he slid down it. "I could see the hide coming off my hands," Harris said later, "but I figured if I held on I wouldn't be finished."

He was right. Sliding to a fifth-floor ledge, he suffered only...

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