DENVER (AP) – Firefighters rescued two window washers who were clinging desperately to their scaffold as strong winds slammed the platform repeatedly into the side of a downtown high-rise.

The two men, whose names weren’t released, were rescued Wednesday after firefighters went up to the 12th floor of the 22-story office building and grabbed the scaffold when it blew toward them. The men, who weren’t seriously hurt, bolted inside.

“If we weren’t there at that time and that platform didn’t hit that exact window, it could have been a lot worse for us and for them,” firefighter Lt. Scott Lang said Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Rescuers then used the window washers’ safety ropes to tie the scaffold to the building.

People on the ground scrambled to dodge flying shards of glass. No one was hurt.

Firefighters cordoned off a block.

“I was praying for those guys,” said Benny Smith, a Qwest Communications employee who watched from across the street. “Those guys were hanging on for dear life.”

The two men work for Bob Popp Building Services Inc. Popp, the business owner, said the company always checks the weather before dispatching a crew.

“It just came out of nowhere,” Popp said of the wind.

The National Weather Service estimated the wind blew from 15 mph to 25 mph possibly with gusts of up to 30 mph around 10 a.m., when the scaffold started swinging. Popp said the men, who were wearing safety harnesses, had finished the job and were moving the scaffold to the top of the building when a mechanical failure stopped it.

Lt. Phil Champagne of the Denver Fire Department said a broken boom anchor on the scaffold was the problem.

The federal Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident.