TAYLORSVILLE, Utah, Aug. 10, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Firefighters rescued a man who found himself trapped in the back of a garbage truck.
A total of four firefighter/EMT units from the Taylorsville and Kearns stations of the Unified Fire Authority responded to the rescue in Taylorsville, according to a UFA press release on the Wednesday afternoon drama.
“Our personnel created an innovative rope rescue system using the aerial ladder as a high point to lower the patient from the truck in a stokes basket.”
A ladder truck was used as a winch to pull the man out of the hold of the garbage truck and lower him safely into the back of an ambulance. That, said Kelly Bird, Unified Fire public information officer, after EMTs climbed down into the garbage truck hold to treat the man’s injuries and stabilize him before he could be lifted out.
The EMTs had to be sure the man’s spine was secure, a normal precaution for a fall, Bird said. Medical personnel, he said, can’t comment on the man’s injuries except to say that the patient was conscious and talking when he left in the ambulance.
It wasn’t clear how the man came to be in the dumpster when it was emptied into the large commercial garbage truck, the type called a roll-off truck with the large front-end mechanical arms that lift dumpsters.
“He may have fallen asleep, he may have been looking for food, we don’t know,” Bird said. “He didn’t tell us why he was in the dumpster.”
However he came to be inside “it was poor timing for this gentleman,” he told Gephardt Daily. “He could have been killed.”
The driver of the garbage truck was unaware of the human in his cargo. He was alerted by a person at his next stop who heard the man inside the hold calling for help. “
“It’s unexpected situations like these we train for and use our creativity to produce the best outcome for the communities we serve.”
