Images broadcast on local television showed a trio of rescuers loading the man onto a telescopic aerial ladder, then descending and wheeling him on a stretcher into an ambulance.

His state was not immediately clear, but Adriano De Acutis, chief commander of Rome’s firefighters, said on state television channel RAI that he was conscious.

“Since the conditions seem serious, they will now evaluate him and he was immediately taken to the hospital,” Lamberto Giannini, prefect of Rome, told reporters afterwards.

“The operation lasted a long time because every time a part of the body was freed there was additional rubble that covered it.”

Rescuers had faced a complex task as they tried to use a first-floor window to get near the trapped worker. But they were forced to retreat in a cloud of de

See Full Page