Woman survives being compacted among trash after getting dumped in garbage truck

A woman was hospitalized with serious injuries after she was rescued from a garbage truck in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Monday, officials said.

They believe she was in a dumpster emptied into the hopper, the garbage cargo container behind the cab, as the truck was on its daily route, the Manchester Fire Department said in a statement. She was stuck amid refuse that was compacted four times, it said, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether that was the source of her injuries.

“She was dumped at some point,” Fire Chief Ryan J. Cashin said in an interview at the scene.

What she was doing in the dumpster remained a mystery. Cashin said a sanitation worker on to the truck spotted the woman in the hopper via the vehicle’s video system, which has at least one camera trained inside the hopper.

The woman was standing and had been yelling for help when firefighters arrived, the fire department statement said.

She was saved with the help of a rescue basket that was lowered into the hopper from a ladder truck, which was used almost as a crane.

The woman was taken to a trauma facility, the fire department said. Her exact condition was unavailable, and representatives of the facility, Elliot Hospital, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I have never seen one like this,” Cashin said.