Man survives being crushed by trash truck compactor

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Robert Baswell was tossed with the trash into a West Palm Beach, Fla., garbage truck on Monday morning. With tons of trash compacted around him several times, the 44-year-old homeless man could have died there. But the sanitation crew spotted him buried in the truck and firefighters spent nearly 45 minutes rescuing him.

“The maggots were all over my eyes and ears. I was all broken up. I couldn’t move,” Baswell said, fighting back tears from his hospital bed.

Baswell said he fell asleep Sunday night in a garbage bin. He woke up when his shelter was hoisted up and dumped into the back of the truck. He said he was pinned there, under several concrete blocks and amid carcasses of animals, for at least a couple of hours.

“All I kept thinking about in there was my granny,” who died last month in Georgia, he said. He wasn’t ready to follow her in death so soon.

Baswell said he went to get medication Sunday in West Palm Beach but got caught in a storm.

So he hopped into the trash bin to stay dry.

Sometime after 3 a.m. EDT, the sanitation crew picked up the container and Baswell with it. They compacted the trash at least several times, unaware Baswell was fighting for his life in the back, said Phil Kaplan, spokesman for West Palm Beach Fire-Rescue.

But their run came to an abrupt halt around 5:30 a.m. One of the workers climbed into the truck to remove debris and discovered Baswell.

“They saved his life,” said John Alford, city interim public works director.