PORT WILLIAMS - The young man seriously injured while working on a garbage truck in Port Williams May 10 has died.
The man was part of a three-person crew collecting large items from the roadside in Kings County as part of a twice-annual cleanup.
Several sources said the man died as a result of his injuries, which were sustained in the part of the truck where workers place garbage before it is pushed farther back into the storage area. It’s not known what exactly happened, but it’s not believed that he was pushed into the garbage storage compartment.
Department of Labour spokeswoman Chrissy Matheson said in an email the department doesn’t confirm workplace fatalities anymore because the information relates to personal medical and health information. She said the RCMP might be able to provide that information.
RCMP spokeswoman Const. Kelli Gaudet said the information would have to come from the Department of Labour because it was their investigation, and all police could say was that they received a call about a person injured in the back of a garbage truck at 3 p.m.
The man was an employee of EFR Disposal in Middleton, a private contractor doing the work for Valley Waste Resource Management.
A person who answered the phone at EFR referred calls to its general counsel, who could not be reached May 12.
After the incident, the part of the truck that grabs and pushes items into the storage area was raised on its pistons and the contents had partially fallen out onto the road.
The day of the accident, a man who lives nearby said he heard the driver say the victim was caught in the truck.
The Department of Labour issued a stop work order on the garbage truck later that night, but had no updates on the investigation the following day.
