KEY POINTS:
A man who fell asleep in a rubbish skip after "domestic problems" is lucky to be alive after being dumped into a truck that crushes the rubbish.
The South Auckland man was found by the truck driver, who heard him banging for help from inside the compactor only because he had stopped to open a gate at a commercial property in Takinini about 4.20am on Monday.
Industry employees spoken to by the Herald yesterday said it was lucky the man was found because drivers' routes could involve many stops and they did not always get out of their vehicles before crushing the rubbish.
St John Ambulance paramedics took the man, believed to be in his 40s, to Middlemore Hospital with a deep cut to his head, which needed stitches.
He was otherwise unharmed.
It is believed the man, described as a "transient-type character" who was a "really nice guy", had been sleeping in the skip because he was having some domestic problems where he was staying and had left seeking a quieter place.
He was said to have "smelt like a rubbish bag" after being rescued.
The man fell asleep in the skip somewhere in Papakura and was collected with the rubbish and driven for about 15 minutes to Takanini.
The driver heard him banging on the side of the truck when he stopped to open a security gate at a commercial premises on Spartan Rd.
Mark Dickson, the Auckland operations manager for Transpacific Industries Group, the parent company of Waste Management, said the man was not in immediate danger of being crushed because it was early on in the driver's route.
"The guy wasn't particularly hurt - he's had a cut to the forehead. Ambulance was called and all the rest of it was done and he was part of the walking wounded, as it were, and he was fine."
But the company was treating the incident seriously.
Mr Dickson said the driver had given details of the incident to the company's health and safety team, which started an investigation after being notified yesterday.
"We need to know why it happened and how it happened and if there is some way we can minimise or eliminate the danger," he said.
The incident was a first for the company but there had been many cases of vagrants being caught in rubbish trucks in the United States.
Some overseas incidents had ended in death.
"It's something that we don't want to see happen," Mr Dickson said.
"The ramifications of things going wrong are there. Look at the American ones and you get an example."
The investigation's findings would be reported to all staff.
