A curious 7-year-old who’d climbed into a garbage bin was saved from a grisly fate by a careful sanitation worker who spotted him in the nick of time. Elias Quezada was wondering what the inside of a trash can would be like — so on Tuesday, he climbed inside one outside his home in Tampa and closed the lid.
But just moments later, a garbage truck rolled by, picking up the bin with a mechanical arm and tossing it in the back, where a garbage disposal-like blade awaited. “Yes [I was scared],” Elias told WTVT. “I felt like I was going to be a mashed potato.”
Inside the house, Elias’ grandmother Carmen Salazar said she heard screaming, and initially thought her grandson may have been hit by the truck, or was trapped beneath its wheels.
Fortunately for the family, sanitation worker Waldo Fidele was behind the wheel — and as he checked his surveillance video, managed to spot Elias and hit the stop button just in time.