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An Escape Pack for Wall Streeters

By Nicole Levy | July 30, 2015 12:43pm

Wall Street is always getting bailouts, it seems.

The literal kind comes in the form of taxpayer dollars, the figurative in the form of a backpack that gives emergency evacuees the ability to rappel down skyscrapers. 

An ad for SkySaver, the device that promises to help you escape a high-rise building should a fire break out beneath your floor, went up in the window of 35 Wall St. this week.

SkySaver

(Credit: Imgur)

Here's how it works. Step one: strap the backpack around your waist and legs. Step two: attach the fire-resistant cable it contains to an anchor you've already installed inside. Step three: descend at a slow speed down the side of your building.

"I can see it now. There's a fire in the hi-rise. The executives pull out their $800 rappelling backpack and say, 'See ya, serfs!' as they roll out the window," one commenter wrote under an image of the ad posted to Reddit. (The cheapest SkySaver model, with the shorter cable, costs "just $749," according to the Israeli-based company's website.)

Added another commenter, "What really sucks is you being the only one who has one and looking at the forlorn looks in your co-workers eyes as you start to put it on. But then it's Wall Street, so you're already immune to human emotion and guilt."

SkySaver officially launches August 3. In the meantime, if you want people to know you're thinking about emergency preparedness, you can snap a selfie of yourself with the company's Wall Street ad for the chance to win a free t-shirt. (This begs the questions: do any Wall Street bankers carry selfie sticks?)