Homeless father crushed to death after trash bin that he was sleeping in is tipped into garbage truck in Manchester
David Warrington, 43, was reportedly sleeping rough and had crawled into a trash bin after a concert at O2 Apollo in Manchester in 2014
By Priyanka Sundar
Updated On : 07:45 PST, Mar 4, 2019
A 43-year-old homeless father who slept in a trash bin outside the Apollo theatre in Manchester was crushed to death and his body was only found after the bin caught fire while it was being emptied into a garbage truck. An inquest into his death concluded on Friday that his death was accidental.
David Warrington was reportedly sleeping rough and had crawled into the trash bin after a concert at O2 Apollo in Manchester in 2014 after using the side panel to gain access. Wayne Fitton, a waste collection driver who arrived to clear the waste in the container outside the concert venue did not have prior knowledge of Warrington's presence in the trash bin and tipped the container in to a garbage truck.
David Warrington was found in a trash bin outside O2 Apollo in Manchester (Source: Facebook)
The container weighed unusually heavy, however, Fitton assumed that it was due to the waste from the concert that had just concluded. The waste bin reportedly caught fire while it was being emptied into the truck and Warrington's body was discovered by the fire crew who were called to fight the fire.
David Warrington was sleeping rough in the bin when it was tip into a waste collection lorry https://t.co/sl1msSWBOW
— Manchester News MEN (@MENnewsdesk) March 1, 2019
Warrington had been living in hostels and, sometimes, on the streets during a brief period of homelessness, according to a report in Manchester Evening News. The inquest heard that waste collection driver Fitton was unable to inspect the container due to a defect on the side panel.
Fitton also said that the container weighed 600 kg while they usually weigh around 250 kg. This did lead to a stray thought — the possibility that someone could have been inside the bin — but Fitton did not give it much thought as a concert had been organized at the venue the night before. The bin caught on fire as Fitton was emptying the waste from the bin into his lorry, which Fitton immediately reported.
David Warrington's body was found after the trash bin that he was in caught on fire (Picture for representative purposes only: Getty Images)
A postmortem concluded that Warrington could have died before the bin caught on fire and said that the reason for death was "crush asphyxia", which was a result of being crushed by the weight of the waste. Pathologist Charles Wilson told the inquest that Warrington would have died much before the fire. The hearing came to an end on Friday and the jury unanimously concluded that Warrington's death was an accident.
Helen Warrington, the mother of the victim, spoke at the inquest and said, "David was extremely clever but started using drugs when he was about 20 years old."
The court was also apprised of Warrington's stay in prison where he suffered from a head injury. The cause of the same was unknown. Helen continued, "He suffered that brain injury and nothing was ever the same again. David became aggressive and didn't know where he was half of the time. It was nothing to do with the drugs, he was just a completely different man. His conversations and outlook on life were completely different. I didn't recognise him."
She concluded by saying, "I was doing everything I could for him but I just couldn't help him in the way he needed."