This is prolly how rabies spread so quickly, and sporatically into the northeast - raccoons hitching a ride in a packer truck.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/227/nation/Okla_prison_inmate_crushed_kil:.shtml

Okla. prison inmate crushed, killed trying to escape in garbage truck

By Associated Press, 8/15/2001 20:17

HOMINY, Okla. (AP) A prison inmate trying to escape in the outgoing trash was crushed to death inside a garbage truck Wednesday.

State correctional officers discovered Mariano Absum, 27, was missing just before noon, and an investigation led them to suspect he had escaped in the garbage truck that made its routine stop at the prison.

They quickly located the truck, which had broken down about two miles away.

''When we opened the truck, we found the inmate,'' who had been crushed in the truck's compactor, Corrections Department spokesman Jerry Massie said.

He may have hidden in a garbage bin that was emptied into the truck, Massie said.

Absum arrived at the medium-security Conner Correctional Center in May to begin a three-year sentence for assault and battery.

-- Anonymous, August 15, 2001

Answers

It doesn't make the newspapers, but we lose at least one homeless person a year that way. They just haven't learned that particular risk of passing out in dumpsters. Or maybe their minds are so far gone that it's a new kind of Russian Roulette -- Dumpster Roulette! If you pick the right container in which to pass out, you'll be alive when you wake up. If not, you'll find yourself elsewhere.

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

I have a problem with the neatness of the body recovery. They immediately suspected the inmate was in the truck and just happened to find the truck broken down two miles away before the load was dumped. Yup, he was in there all right. Did he really die in there, or before?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001

I saw this escape method in a movie just the other day. I cannot remember the name or the actor, but the character was young and being protected by another inmate who didn't make it into the truck in time.

I wonder if that is where he got the idea to try it?

-- Anonymous, August 16, 2001