25 firefighters spend 2+ hours digging man out of compacted garbage truck load

A routine garbage collection in San Francisco turned into a desperate rescue early Wednesday after a bystander heard screams coming from inside a garbage truck. The San Francisco Fire Department responded at about 4:11 a.m. on September 2, after the passerby alerted the Recology driver that someone appeared to be yelling from the vehicle. By then, the truck's load had already been compacted, leaving a man trapped beneath a large amount of garbage. According to PEOPLE and FOX 32 Chicago, around 25 firefighters spent more than two hours carefully removing the waste by hand to reach him. The man remained conscious and communicative during the rescue and was eventually taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in serious condition. Screams trigger emergency response The incident unfolded on Mason Street near San Francisco's Union Square, close to the Powell BART station. A bystander heard what sounded like a person shouting from inside the garbage truck and stopped the Recology driver. The driver then contacted emergency services, bringing firefighters to the scene shortly after 4 a.m. When firefighters assessed the truck, they realised they were dealing with an unusually difficult rescue. A person was trapped somewhere beneath the garbage that had already been collected and compacted. The situation meant that simply emptying the truck was not considered safe. Instead, firefighters had to figure out how to remove the garbage while protecting the person buried underneath it. Firefighters remove trash by hand About 25 firefighters took part in the rescue operation, which continued for more than two hours. Rather than relying on the truck's normal unloading process, crews manually removed garbage from the vehicle. Large amounts of waste were taken out and spread across the street as firefighters worked toward the trapped man. The rescue was complicated by the fact that the victim was underneath a substantial amount of refuse. Firefighters feared that dumping the contents all at once could further injure him, so they removed the garbage carefully while working toward his location. Despite the circumstances, the man remained conscious and able to communicate with rescuers. Paramedics also provided medical care while firefighters continued working to free him. Medical team feared crush syndrome The man's condition made the rescue particularly urgent. According to PEOPLE, paramedics administered an intravenous line to help prevent crush syndrome, a potentially dangerous medical condition that can occur after a person has been trapped under heavy pressure for an extended period. When pressure is released, damaged muscle tissue can release substances into the bloodstream that may cause serious complications. The medical team therefore had to consider not only the man's immediate injuries but also what could happen when he was finally removed from the garbage. Firefighters eventually reached and extracted him before 7 a.m., ending a rescue that had lasted several hours from the initial emergency call. Man hospitalised after rescue The rescued man was taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in serious condition, a spokesperson said, according to The San Francisco Standard. Authorities were also investigating how he ended up inside the garbage truck. Officials believed the man had likely been inside a dumpster before it was emptied into the truck. A mechanical collection system lifts dumpsters and transfers their contents into the vehicle, creating the possibility that someone inside a container could be carried into the truck without being noticed. Recology spokesperson Robert Reed told PEOPLE that such incidents are highly unusual and that the last similar case occurred about 15 years ago. The incident also highlighted the dangers associated with climbing into refuse containers. Once a person is inside a dumpster, there is no guarantee they will be seen before the container is emptied, and garbage trucks can compact their loads with enormous force. For the firefighters on Mason Street, however, the first warning came from a simple sound: someone shouting for help. That bystander's decision to stop the truck and alert the driver ultimately triggered the rescue response. What followed was more than two hours of painstaking work as firefighters emptied a garbage truck piece by piece, searching through its contents until they could reach the trapped man and bring him out alive.