Imagine walking down the street next to a garbage truck and hearing muffled screams coming from inside the vehicle. That’s what bystanders in San Francisco heard before immediately flagging the driver of the dump truck. This prompted a rescue that lasted hours, as dozens of firefighters combed through the trash to free the victim stuck inside.
Firefighters rescue man buried inside compacted trash
On September 2 at around 4:11 a.m., firefighters from the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a report of a passerby who had heard “sounds of someone yelling” from inside a Recology dump truck, according to reports from SFGate and local outlet KTVU.
San Francisco Fire Capt. Mariano Elias said that the incident occurred when the driver, at the start of his daily route, accidentally scooped up a dumpster where a man had been digging inside and emptied the receptacle into the back of the truck. The driver was unaware that there was a person trapped under the trash and had use the vehicle’s compactor at least once before he was flagged by multiple people who heard the victim shouting from inside the container.
The driver immediately pulled over to the 100 block of Mason Street near the Powell BART stop and turned off the vehicle, as firefighters arrived on scene to search for the man trapped inside the truck bed.
While responders wanted to rescue the victim quickly, they realized that it would not be safe to dump the truck’s trash in one load as they could injure the man further. Fortunately, the man remained conscious and continued to speak with firefighters throughout the rescue.
“I personally heard him yell a few times,” Elias told PEOPLE. “I don’t know if that as in pain or just frustration.”
It took over two hours for twenty-five firefighters to manually pull every item from the dump truck onto the road. All told, 30 cubic yards of debris had to be removed from the vehicle, as fire personnel scoured through the trash using long poles to search for the victim. One firefighter sustained a minor cut during the rescue effort.
Man remains in serious condition at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital
When they were finally able to reach the man, paramedics managed to locate his arm and administer medication through an IV for his injuries and to protect him from the possibility of crush syndrome, a condition that can cause muscle breakdown if left untreated. It is unclear what the extent of the man’s injuries were and if they were sustained from being dropped into the truck, buried by the trash, or crushed by the truck’s compactor mechanism.
The man was eventually rescued before 7 a.m. by personnel, and video of the rescue shows him being transported from the back of the truck onto a stretcher. He was later taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for treatment where he is considered to be in serious condition, according to The San Francisco Standard.
Workers from Recology later cleared the large pile of trash left on the road using construction equipment, loading it into a separate dump truck. Robert Reed, a spokesperson for Recology, said that this incident was “pretty unusual” and the last time something similar happened was 15 years ago.
Firefighters plan to interview the victim at the trauma center to determine why he was in the dumpster prior to the incident.
Elias said, “It’s an unfortunate situation to lead someone to go into a dumpster, whether that was to sleep or fish through some things to find something for himself or something to eat, but the good part of his outcome is that he’s alive.”
