Homeless man found in bin crushed to death

24 Aug BTI.Com

A homeless man, who had been sleeping in an industrial-sized bin, is believed to have suffocated and been crushed to death in a commercial waste pick-up truck.Gardai identified the 43-year-old man as Henryk Ypiotrowsky, from documentation on his clothing and were trying to contact his family in Poland.

A post-mortem examination by the Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, at Tallaght Hospital in Dublin confirmed the man was still alive when the bin was emptied into the truck yesterday morning.Inquiries were under way last night to establish where the tragic incident took place.

Mr Ypiotrowsky had been sleeping in one of 55 bins collected by a truck, owned by Panda refuse and recycling company, during a regular run yesterday morning in Dublin's south inner city, stretching from Ranelagh to the Grand Canal.

The binmen had set out around 6am to collect commercial waste from business premises and almost three hours later returned to Panda's base at Ballymount industrial estate, close to the M50, on the outskirts of Dublin city.

A Panda worker spotted the body as the load was tipped out into a mammoth transfer shed to be sorted out by a crew.Panda director John Dunne said work was immediately halted and the premises put into “lockdown” as gardai were alerted to the discovery.Mr Dunne said the binmen were unaware until the waste truck was emptied shortly before 9am, for bulking into a larger truck for transfer to landfill or other destinations.

“They would only have seen it when they emptied the truck. They were tipping the load out again at the transfer station when a worker noticed the body,” Mr Dunne said.

“We went into lockdown straight away.He said the workers were unaware of the point at which the body had entered the truck.After the grim find the body was examined at the scene by Dr Curtis and then transferred to Tallaght Hospital for post-mortem tests, which got under way yesterday evening.

The preliminary examination indicated that the man had died from suffocation after being crushed in the truck. Gardai said they would not be releasing the name of the man until today, when they hoped he could be positively identified by Polish friends living here. Officers were also trying to contact members of his family in Poland before making his identity public.They described the man's death as a “tragic accident” and said he had been “down on his luck”.

Alan Bailey, from the Capuchin Day Centre, which helps those who are homeless or in difficulties, said he did not know if the man had been one of the Eastern European community attending the Bow Street centre for hot meals.We have people coming to us who have fallen on hard times and we always fear that something like this will happen,” he said.A lot of Eastern Europeans had been working on building sites and are stranded now.”Last Wednesday the centre gave out 1,620 food packages and served a hot breakfast to some 640 people.