MIAMI – A man was seriously hurt early Saturday after he was crushed inside a truck's trash compactor, officials said.
Capt. Ignatius Carroll, a spokesman for the Miami Fire-Rescue Department, said the man was inside a dumpster around 7:30 a.m. when a Waste Management truck emptied the bin into its compactor.
The recycling truck was traveling to another dumpster in the 100 block of Northeast 25th Street when one of the workers heard a strange sound and the man’s cries for help.
The workers shut down the compactor and went outside to find a man sitting on top of the truck. He had serious injuries to his legs and was taken to the hospital, Carroll said.
Carroll credited the workers with saving the man's life.
"The machinery is very loud. So for him to be aware of what was going on was definitely live-saving," Carroll said. "I know that there is a lot of force with that type of machinery ... this could have been a lot of worse."
It was unclear why the man was inside the dumpster, Carroll said.