A man was hospitalized in serious condition on Wednesday after he was accidentally scooped out of a dumpster and dumped into a San Francisco garbage truck before the vehicle’s compactor was activated. The horrifying incident unfolded shortly after 4:10 a.m. near Mason and Eddy streets, just blocks from San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin District. According to KTVU, the man had reportedly been digging through a commercial dumpster when a Recology driver mechanically lifted the container and emptied its contents into the back of the garbage truck.
The victim was dropped into the vehicle and buried beneath approximately 30 cubic yards of garbage. Bystanders suddenly heard desperate screams coming from inside the truck and flagged down the driver, but the garbage compactor had already been activated at least once. Twenty-five San Francisco firefighters rushed to the scene and began the difficult process of removing the truck’s contents by hand. Firefighters feared that dumping the entire load onto the street could further injure or kill the man, so they painstakingly pulled apart the mountain of garbage piece by piece.
