A man in Alabama survived being crushed twice inside a garbage truck during an early morning trash collection route.
Emergency responders in Jackson received a call around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday about a person trapped inside a garbage truck, according to WKRG. Officials believe the truck’s compactor crushed the man at two separate stops. The first compression occurred at a KFC on Highway 43. The second happened at a Hampton Inn next door.
The truck driver only discovered the man when he arrived at a nearby Popeyes restaurant. The gates at the Popeyes were closed and forced the driver to exit his vehicle. That’s when he heard someone calling for help.
Jackson Fire Chief John Brown, as identified by WLT Report, said the locked gates proved critical. (RELATED: ‘We Should Have All Been Gone’: Man Who Worked As Firefighter Growing Up Dies Saving Family From House Fire)
“It’s really a fortunate thing that the gates at the Popeyes were closed and the driver had to get out,” Brown told WKRG. “When he exited the dump truck, he could hear the man in the back needing help, and that’s when he shut everything down.”
Brown said he had never encountered anything like this in his career. “I’ve been associated with the fire department for 40 years. We’ve never had a situation like this come up,” Brown said.
An Alabama man survived after being compressed inside a garbage truck — twice.
Emergency responders were called around 5:30 a.m. to a report of a person inside a garbage truck in Jackson.
Officials believe the man was compressed twice during the truck’s early morning route,… pic.twitter.com/20vdwgoJRn
— Yellowhammer News (@yhn) January 30, 2026
Volunteer firefighter Mendy Boldin arrived expecting to perform serious trauma care. She found the opposite.
“We were all shocked because we thought, well, we’re going to have to get down there and really do some trauma assistance to him to get him out, but he was fine,” Boldin told WKRG. “That was a God thing.”
The man’s survival defied extreme odds. Garbage truck compactors generate between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, according to Newsweek. The machines can apply more than 80 tons of combined force. Similar incidents have proven fatal. Two men died inside a garbage truck compactor in Tallahassee, Florida in December 2016.
Officials believe the man was homeless and had crawled into the dumpster to escape the cold while passing through town, WKRG reported.
