Man rescued from inside garbage truck describes the ordeal
By Kennedi Cooper
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JACKSON, Mississippi (WAPT) — A man who was rescued after becoming trapped inside a garbage truck says he has been grateful for every day since.
“It’s hard to wrap your head around. It’s such an experience you just can’t put words,” Bob Rutherford said.
Jackson firefighters pulled Rutherford from the garbage truck on Jan. 9. He had suffered a broken leg and hip during the ordeal, which began with a quest for cardboard.
“I wound up finding a dumpster, which had two big boxes inside, about refrigerator-size,” Rutherford said. “I was going to take one of those and take it back to my home base.”
While trying to grab the cardboard out of the dumpster, Rutherford became trapped.
“The next thing I knew, I’m in the bottom of a garbage truck,” Rutherford said. “I got dumped on my head and I’m lying there flat on my back, and I’ve got so much on I can’t get myself up. With garbage, there’s oil, water, so it’s going to be slick and slippery.”
What came next almost cost Rutherford his life.
“I heard this chi-chink. I hear a motor going, and all of a sudden, here comes the blade,” Rutherford said. “The stuff starts pushing up against me, and the blade moves closer and folds me up like a pretzel. At that point, I knew I was dead, and my leg pops.”
Rutherford said he screamed for help and tried to get the garbage truck driver’s attention.
“‘Hey, hey, hey — I’m in here in the back of the truck.’ I’m like a fish out of water trying to get up all at the same time,” Rutherford said.
The driver heard the banging and saw Rutherford from a rear-facing camera. The truck stopped at a convenience store on Highway 80 and Ellis, where firefighters got to work rescuing Rutherford.
“The nurses have been real good. I’ve been getting new clothes and shoes and stuff,” he said.
Rutherford thinks a special necklace helped him make it through the experience alive.
“This copper necklace, one side had marks and the other side said, ‘Believe.’ I thought to myself, ‘Believe,’ and it clicked,” Rutherford said.
Rutherford said he survived for a purpose: to spread a message of hope that nothing is impossible, especially miracles.
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