Firefighters empty piles of garbage on street to see if someone is trapped in truck
Bags of wet, smelly garbage piled up on a Hialeah street Friday morning as firefighters emptied a garbage truck to search for someone who might have been trapped inside.
The call came in after a Waste Management worker heard a strange noise coming from the back of the truck, according to David Rodriguez, a Hialeah Fire-Rescue spokesman.
When rescue crews first arrived, they tried using their thermal equipment to see if someone was inside. When they found nothing, they decided to roll up their sleeves and start digging through the contents, shoveling hundreds of bags onto the street.
“It’s a chaotic scene, trash is everywhere,” Rodriguez said while the search was happening. “We are physically sifting through trash to see if we find anyone.”
Local TV traffic helicopters captured rescuers throwing thousands of pounds of trash onto the street in the 7400 block of West 20th Avenue, next to the Palmetto Expressway.
No one was found, Rodriguez said, but firefighters kept digging for more than an hour, until the truck was empty, just to be sure.
Then, a garbage crew cleaned up the mess and loaded the bags onto a truck. The worker at the scene declined to comment.
Progressive Waste Solutions did not immediately respond for comment.
This story was originally published July 26, 2019 at 7:29 AM.
