MILWAUKEE – Police in Milwaukee say a teenage boy has survived after being accidentally dumped into the back of a recycling truck and compacted.
Police say the 14-year-old ran away from a boot camp-style school for teens Monday and hid in a recycling bin filled with cardboard.
The bin was picked up by a Waste Management truck and dumped into the vehicle’s rear compactor.
Waste Management spokeswoman Lynn Morgan says the truck continued on its collection route, compacting cardboard several times.
The boy wasn’t discovered until the truck dumped its load at a recycling processing center.
He was semiconscious and was taken to a hospital, but police say his injuries aren’t life-threatening.
In high school I had a coach who served in the Army. He said one of the guys he served with had one of those special American Airlines cards that he could use to fly anywhere for free because his father invented that process of how a garbage truck picks up a dumpster and dumps in the area behind the truck.