Trapped and Ticking: Man’s Harrowing Ordeal Inside a Bin Lorry Revealed
Ever wonder what it’s like to have an unexpected overnight stay inside a garbage truck? Well, one guy in San Francisco got a little too up close and personal with a bin lorry last month—and not by choice. At the crack of dawn on September 2nd, early morning binmen caught some desperate yelling coming from inside a Recology garbage truck on Mason Street. Believe me, it’s not every day you hear screams coming from a pile of trash. The San Francisco Fire Department swooped in, dispatching 25 firefighters who spent over two grueling hours digging through the refuse to rescue the man, who thankfully stayed conscious and talking throughout the ordeal. There’s a heck of a story here—about survival, unusual predicaments, and what happens when life literally dumps you in the dumpster. Curious about how this bizarre rescue unfolded and what happened afterward?
A man was transported to hospital in a serious condition after being trapped inside a bin lorry in San Francisco last month.
The San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) said in a statement that binmen heard screaming coming from a garbage truck at around 4:11am on 2 September.
The SFFD said a fire truck was ‘dispatched to a report of a person trapped inside a Recology garbage truck on the 100 block of Mason St’.
“The driver of the truck had been flagged down and was told there was yelling inside the garbage area of his truck,” they said.
“Crews are currently working to remove all the garbage to access the victim.”
SFFD public information officer Captain Mariano Elias told PEOPLE that 25 firefighters were called to help pull the man out of the lorry for over two hours.
During the rescue, the man remained conscious and ‘verbal’, Elias said.
The man was transported to hospital in a serious condition (San Francisco Fire Department)
“I personally heard him yell a few times,” he recalled. “I don’t know if that was in pain or just frustration.”
Once the individual, whose identity hasn’t been shared publicly, was successfully removed from garbage truck, paramedics accessed the man’s arm to administer an intravenous drip to protect him from crush syndrome.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, crush syndrome is a life-threatening condition that can cause muscle breakdown, releasing ‘potentially toxic muscle cell components and electrolytes into the circulatory system’.
It can cause local tissue injury, organ dysfunction, and metabolic abnormalities, including acidosis, hyperkalemia and hypocalcemia.
“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,” Elias said.
Recology spokesperson Robert Reed said the incident was ‘pretty unusual’.
Samuel Menchaca, a public information officer with the Fire Department, said one firefighter suffered a laceration injury and was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
LADbible Group has reached out to the San Francisco Fire Department for an update.
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