A water tower maintenance worker from Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, was surely glad of a safety harness and rope when he was the target of a technical rescue on 11/11. He was left hanging 110 feet above the ground after the ladder he was using slipped out from under him. Luckily, the safety harness and rope meant he did not fall and get badly or fatally injured. The technical rescue team from the Virginia Beach Fire Department attended the scene, having practiced tower rescues just two days prior to using the skills in a real life situation. A ladder truck bucket was placed beneath the man for safety, in case the harness or safety line was to fail during the rescue. A member of the rescue team climbed up the water tower and abseiled down the outside, reaching the trapped worker after he had been hanging there for 45 minutes. The rescue team member hooked the stranded man onto his own safety line, disconnected his, and lowered them both into the waiting ladder truck bucket, from which they were both lowered to the ground. The worker was uninjured, but taken to hospital as a precaution. Amy Valdez, a spokesperson for the Virginia Beach Fire Department said, "[the team] was just doing tower rescue practice in Saturday, this exact crew – that's what we train for, and unfortunately we know that someday it's going to happen and today everything came together perfectly." A lucky coincidence for the tile worker, who reaped the benefits of their recent training session. It is even luckier that he was wearing his safety harness.