A woman from Manchester, New Hampshire in the US had a lucky escape as she survived by compacted in a garbage truck four times before being rescued.
The unnamed woman is believed to have been taking out rubbish at an apartment block but then somehow fell into a dumpster there. She remained unnoticed by workers when the dumpster was emptied into the garbage truck. The truck, and the team working on it, then carried on their work unloading more dumpsters and using the compactor four times before the woman was finally discovered.
When the driver noticed the woman inside the compactor part of the vehicle he raised the alarm, according to local news outlet the Manchester Ink Link. A team from the local City of Manchester, NH Fire Department was dispatched to the scene to rescue the woman.
Fire officers quickly made contact with the woman, who was conscious and alert, through a side access panel of the truck, but it quickly became apparent that she had suffered significant injuries during her ordeal and would not be able to escape the vehicle unaided.
Rescuers gained entrance to the garbage truck through the top and used ladders to get to the woman and stabilise her, before she was put in a basket and carefully lifted out by trained officers.
The woman was then rushed to hospital, where she was treated for serious injuries, including broken bones. She is now beginning the process of recovery.
How the woman came to fall into the dumpster is unclear, and fire officials confirmed that she wasn’t an unsheltered person, although there had been snowfall in Manchester that day and conditions were said to be slippery. How long she was in the dumpster before it was collected has also not been clarified.
