Trash compactor kills Dick’s worker

Drewid McGilvra was a fixture at Dick’s Hamburgers.

For 17 years, the Spokane man could be found tending to the homemade fries, sizzling up Whammy burgers or helping prep food for the restaurant’s stream of customers.

McGilvra died Monday, crushed in a trash compactor behind the business, police said. The restaurant at 10 E. Third Ave. stayed closed for the day.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries was investigating the death as an industrial accident, said spokesman Xenofon Moniodis.

McGilvra showed up to work early Monday, said John Moyna, the restaurant’s night janitor.

“He was assigned to clean a part of the ceiling,” said Moyna, who worked with 37-year-old McGilvra for 12 years. McGilvra did cleaning jobs in addition to his regular cooking duties.

The last words Moyna recalled his co-worker saying were: “Are you finished with the trash?”

A few minutes later, about 5:55 a.m., Moyna found McGilvra crushed to death.

“There’s no foul play suspected,” Spokane Police Officer Devin Presta said.

Labor and Industries was called after police investigated the death, Moniodis said.

Moyna described his former co-worker as eccentric.

“He would always come up with weird ideas,” Moyna said. “He was constantly reading fantasy fiction.”

McGilvra was a regular in Bloomsday, Spokane’s running-walking event.

McGilvra was one of five people featured in a Spokesman-Review feature story in January about people with jobs few would want. He talked good-naturedly about cleaning grease traps and restrooms.

“I’m the one who gets the dirty jobs,” he said.