SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Young patients at Rady Children's Hospital got a special Halloween treat today when window washers showed up dressed as superheroes to clean the building's exterior windows.
ABC 10News spoke with one of the window washers who swapped his day job for his superhero side gig. Eddie Alvarez has been doing window cleaning for the past 20 years.
"What you see is what you get…I am that guy," Alvarez said.
But today, he's getting lots of attention, especially from the kids at Rady Children's Hospital.
"Especially from the littlest of them, uh, littlest of the types, it's pretty much shock and awe to see, uh, Spider-Man actually live and in 3D, you know, not on the screen," Alvarez said.
That includes 4-year-old Elijah Lomeli, who watched from the window with his brother and sister. Elijah has been at the hospital for more than a year, battling cancer.
His parents are thankful for the window washer's heroic dress-ups.
"I think that's awesome. I think it gives them something to look forward to and come out here and just get away from, you know, the normal of being inside the room and coming out here and seeing them dressed up is really cool," Elijah's parent said.
It takes patience and arm strength to get these windows cleaned. A-Plus Window Cleaning has been doing these superhero days for more than 10 years. The grandchildren of the owner used to be patients at the hospital, so it's become a tradition to clean the windows on Halloween.
It takes some creative costumes, too. These window washers use carbon fiber poles to extend four to five stories up to clean and wash these windows.
Alvarez dressed as Spider-Man, but he says the supporters of the kids at the hospital — the doctors, the parents, the staff — are the real heroes every single day.
"But they say it doesn't take a cape to be a superhero, but it definitely takes uh a heart, and everybody here from top to bottom has an overabundance of heart," Alvarez said.
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