Tramp crushed in dust-cart

[faceless]

Tramp crushed in dust cart
JOHN HIGGINSON - Wednesday, May 9, 2007

A tramp crushed in a garbage truck when the bin he was sleeping in was emptied thanks his dead grandmother that he has lived to tell the tale. Homeless Robert Baswell, 44, sustained a broken leg and cracked ribs when he was crushed against half finished hamburgers and dead rats in the back of the high powered vehicle. After being compressed five times he attempted to cushion the blows with a dead possum but it splattered against him.

Each time he screamed for his life but the compressor kept squeezing him until he was spotted by a dustbin man. 'I screamed one last breath,' Baswell said. 'I screamed, 'Please help me, sir, don't get back in the truck',' Baswell said on Monday. The trash collector called for help.

At 5 am on Monday, West Palm Beach firefighters spent almost half an hour pulling pieces of trash out by hand to free Baswell. When he was lifted out on a stretcher, covered in maggots, he thanked his grandmother. He said Dena Baswell died in his Georgia hometown on Jan. 16 at age 94. 'She said, 'I'm gonna be your guardian angel.' I know Granny [was] here trying to keep that machine from squeezing me to death,' Baswell said.

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I was gonna say he's a lucky bugger, but he sleeps in a bin!