A man has been rescued from inside a San Francisco rubbish truck after he was swept up with the contents of a commercial bin and carried into the vehicle.
Firefighters were called to Mason Street, near Eddy Street and the Powell Street BART station, at about 4.10am on Wednesday, 2 September, after a passer-by heard shouting from the back of a Recology truck.
The vehicle’s driver had emptied a dumpster into the truck before realising someone was trapped among the rubbish. The man had reportedly been searching through the bin when it was collected.
Firefighters remove rubbish by hand
About 25 firefighters spent roughly two hours removing the truck’s contents manually. Officials said the man was buried beneath an estimated 30 cubic yards of waste.
Crews worked slowly to avoid causing further injury, while paramedics reached one of his arms through the debris and administered medication through an intravenous line.
The truck’s compactor had been activated at least once before the emergency was recognised. It remained unclear whether the man’s injuries were caused by the fall into the vehicle, the weight of the rubbish or the compaction mechanism.
Firefighters eventually freed the conscious man, who was speaking to rescuers, and took him to hospital. His condition and the full extent of his injuries had not been disclosed.
One firefighter suffered a minor cut to his hand during the operation. Recology workers later used construction equipment to clear the rubbish from the street and return it to a dumpster.
Fire officials said they planned to speak to the man in hospital to establish exactly what he had been doing inside the dumpster before it was emptied into the San Francisco garbage truck.
Freddy Diaz, who watched the rescue, said witnesses initially thought firefighters might be dealing with a child because of the care being taken. “We were thinking it was a baby because they were going so slow and doing it so carefully,” he said.
