Man saved after dangling from flagpole

Media General News Service
Published: January 13, 2009

Paul Reed figures it just wasn’t his time to die.
Not that he didn’t think otherwise Monday.
“I ain’t gonna make it” was his first thought in the seconds after a rope-and-board seat slipped from beneath him, leaving him dangling 75 feet above the ground and grasping for a grip with his legs and arms on an oil-slick flagpole.
“It was my first accident since I began doing this when I was 17,“ said Reed, a few weeks from his 72nd birthday and a lot heavier than the 90-pounder who once earned spending money climbing poles.
The veteran flagpole fix-it man has topped scores of flagpoles scores of times without a mishap. Monday, he came as close to falling as he ever has.
For 20 agonizing minutes, employees of a West Broad Street car dealer and Reed’s 43-year-old son, David, watched in horror as Reed felt himself slowly slipping from a sling that had worked its way to his shoulder blades and under his armpits.
“I was supporting my 186 pounds and gradually losing strength,“ he said.
Henrico fire and rescue workers made it to the site in minutes after an emergency call shortly before 2 p.m. They rescued Reed with a bucket ladder more than six stories above ground.
“I think the most amazing moment was when we all knew Paul was safe and everyone started clapping,“ said Curtis Wells, sales manager at Pearson Chrysler Jeep Mazda at 8509 W. Broad St.
But to Reed, the emergency equipment looked like slow-moving toys from his precarious perch more than halfway up the dealership’s 105-foot pole. Strong winds had damaged cables that secure the firm’s 40-by-60-foot American flag, a local landmark.
Reed got the call to fix things as he has dozens of times at the site.
The near-miss won’t deter his objective to keep climbing until he reaches 75, and Wells said Reed will get the call to come back.
But he said the firm will foot the bill for a bucket truck.
Mondayevening, safe at home in Sandston but sore, Reed still had enough gumption to demonstrate a climbing technique that has taken him to most of Richmond’s highest landmarks, many of them only inches wide at their summit.
“My favorite’s the pole on top of the CNB Bank Building downtown,“ said the West Virginia native and son of a coal miner, referring to the landmark skyscraper at North Third and East Broad streets.
“I guess I always wanted to go up, instead of down in the mines,“ he said of his avocation. His full-time job before retirement was repairing oil burners, but scores of businesses know his number when it comes to climbing poles.
Reed uses two Manila ropes that tighten around the pole, one securing his right foot, and one supporting a board to sit on, as he makes his way upward. Loops in each rope tighten around the pole as the pole’s diameter shrinks.
But yesterday, the pole’s cable, damaged from recent high winds, had severed and the cable’s constant lashing of the pole had made the pole oil-slick.
At one point maybe 85 feet high, the bosun’s chair rig slipped from beneath Reed and he instantly dropped downward, his descent stopped by the seat becoming wedged at his shoulders.
Only 5 feet, 6 inches tall, Reed yelled for help as his son yelled for his father to hang on.
“You can’t be afraid, and I never have been,“ Reed said. “I’ll be back as soon as they’re ready. But it’s the first time I’ve had a mistake in more than 50 years.“
Son David Reed summed it all up:
“Balance and guts.“