A man and woman fell asleep in a trash container and were nearly crushed by a recycling truck compacter Monday.
Kyle Gardner, 23, said he and his girlfriend, Kelsey McMurdo, 23, were looking for someplace to sleep Sunday night.
"It started getting cold and we just kind of found a place," said Gardner.
That place was a trash container outside the Voice of America food distribution center in Everett. They got a rude awakening at 7 a.m. Monday.
"I heard him hook up to it," said Gardner. "And I woke up and tried to jump up but she (McMurdo) was on me."
Seconds later they were being dropped into a Waste Management recycling truck.
"We were yelling at the top of our lungs, banging on the top of the truck, everything," Gardner said. "It wasn't until we pulled up next to somebody at a stop light and I signaled him to tell the driver."
The driver pulled over at a Taco Bell more than a mile away. There are photographs that show what happened next. Everett Fire medics removed McMurdo on a stretcher.
"I saw them take that person out," said witness Michael Lapointe.
Lapointe said it angered him, coming as it did just two days before Everett is set to pass new ordinances critics say are aimed at its homeless population.
"They're pushing the people out of the city," said Lapointe. "They're forcing them into the woods. They're forcing them to go somewhere else for shelter."
Gardner says the truck's compactor nearly crushed him and McMurdo.
"We were trying to climb on top of that so we didn't get squished when it closed," he said.
Now he is looking for a different place to sleep.
"No," he said. "Definitely not in a dumpster again."
Neither he nor anyone else will be able to sleep in that dumpster. A lock was placed on it late Monday to keep people out.
McMurdo was taken to Providence Everett Medical Center. But Monday night, Gardner still had to find a place to stay.
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