Recycling truck crushers dumpster with sleeping man in it
An Oregon man sleeping in a dumpster for recycled cardboard was picked up by a truck and compacted several times before he had to be saved by the local fire department.
The driver of the truck didn’t realize that Ivan Rosalio Mendez Perez, 23, had been scooped up from the dumpster in Albany until he noticed cardboard being thrown from his vehicle, pulled over and heard the man screaming.
Perez suffered a fractured leg in the incident on Thursday morning at about 4am and was taken to Good Samaritan Medical center in Corvallis for treatment. He was said to be in good condition by the afternoon.
Albany Police Captain Eric Carter told The Albany Democrat-herald that he didn’t know the location of the container Perez was sleeping in before the truck picked him up.
‘The driver became aware of it at Big 5 Sporting Goods because the subject was throwing cardboard out of the truck,’ Carter said.
‘He got out to look and heard Mr Perez yelling, so he contacted us. Albany Fire also responded to remove Mr Perez from the truck,’ he added.
The driver of the truck was employed by Republic Services. The company employs approximately 50 drivers who each clean about 100 dumpsters a day.
Carter said that Perez is lucky to be alive after ending up in a compacting truck.
‘Do not play in (dumpsters), do not go into them, do not seek shelter in them, do not sleep in them,’ he said.‘those drivers don’t know.’
He added that this was the second dumpstercrushing incident to happen in Albany in the last five years.
In May 2011, the body of a 50-year-old transient was discovered in a load of cardboard at an Allied Waste location.
Julie Jackson, municipal manager from Republic Services - a dumpster rental company that also teaches people about the dangers of climbing into dumpsters - warned people that they shouldn’t be doing so.