Sage Kelley
Audio By Carbonatix
A Denver man says he fell asleep in a dumpster and almost didn’t wake up after being crushed. Now he’s suing.
Steven Egloff filed a lawsuit against the Waste Connections of Colorado garbage company on May 18, alleging that he was crushed by a dumpster last year. According to his attorney, Michael Rex, the incident led to fractures in Egloff’s arms, ribs and spine, along with lacerations to the head. During the incident, Egloff also reportedly suffered a degloving injury, when top layers of skin and tissue are torn away from underlying muscle.
A homeless man at the time, Egloff says he was sleeping in a commercial dumpster in the RiNo neighborhood at around 5:30 a.m. on April 16, 2025, when a Waste Connections front loader truck picked up the dumpster and dropped him, along with the garbage, into the truck. The driver, who was not named, then started the truck’s internal compactor, crushing Egloff, according to the complaint.
The driver heard Egloff screaming at the next stop and called 911. The Denver Fire Department then pulled Egloff from the truck and transported him to a nearby hospital, where he suffered “life-altering injuries” and “extensive hospitalization,” the lawsuit claims.
“It is hard to imagine a more terrifying experience than being alone in that dark, loud, confined space,” Rex says. “He described hearing his bones break over the sound of the truck and industrial equipment.”
Trespassing, or negligence?
Egloff seeks financial compensation based on negligence by both the driver and the company.
His lawyers argue that the company was negligent for not checking the dumpster before dumping it and the truck’s hopper before compacting it, both of which are recognized by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health hazard publications, the American National Standards Institute’s Z245 mobile collection and compaction protocols and multiple trade group safety bulletins.
According to the lawsuit, industry standards call for front-load operators to use “reasonable care” before compacting trash, including visually checking to ensure no one is in the dumpster. Rex also claims that the company engaged in negligent hiring and training by failing to properly teach the driver to check, and that Waste Connections was liable as the employer.
Waste Connections of Colorado has not responded to a request for comment.
Under the Colorado Premises Liability Act, obtaining recovery for injuries while trespassing must still be decided in court, even if someone wasn’t supposed to be on the premises. But the same statute also states that trespassers can only sue for damages proven to have been “willfully or deliberately” caused by the landowner.
The complaint doesn’t allege willful or deliberate conduct, but rather negligence by the driver and the company. The complaint also doesn’t mention that the injuries were caused by the property’s condition, which would cause the trespassing to be overlooked under the statute.
A court would have to decide whether the dumpster is considered property — and therefore Egloff was trespassing — and whether the injury was caused by the property itself or by the operator’s negligence.
The suit also argues that the driver should have known to check for people due to the likelihood of homeless people in dumpsters during the cold.
“That day in April was really, really cold,” Egloff tells Westword. “I left my backpack sitting outside of the dumpster and climbed inside just trying to get warm and survive. I ended up falling asleep.”
Sheltering in bins
This isn’t the first case of people getting hurt while trespassing in a dumpster.
On April 18, the Pueblo Police Department found a man dead inside a garbage truck. The driver had noticed that the compression system had become stuck. As he looked into the issue, he heard a man’s voice and found him in the storage area with serious injuries. The man was dead before the police arrived.
On January 17, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office began searching for 57-year-old Carl Smith after he was reported missing. Through investigations, deputies found security footage that showed Smith climbing into a dumpster. Smith did not exit before a truck picked up the bin and later dumped it in the Larimer County landfill.
Teams searched the landfill for signs of Smith or his remains, but eventually called the search off.
Neither man was directly identified as being homeless by the corresponding police departments.
Two Denver homeless organizations, St. Francis Center and Denver Rescue Mission, say that people experiencing homelessness often seek dumpsters to sleep in.
“Unfortunately, there are individuals who are experiencing homelessness seeking outside environments that are less than ideal,” Stephen Hinkel, spokesperson with Denver Rescue Mission, says. “Denver Rescue Mission encourages any individual experiencing homelessness to use shelter services to ensure an environment that is staffed by trained professionals as well as secure and safe.”
According to Andrew Spinks, the chief development officer with St. Francis Center for over 20 years, every member of the nonprofit’s outreach team has a story about someone sleeping in a dumpster. However, Spinks says the trend has mostly gone downward to the point that outreach team members no longer feel the need to alert people to the danger.
Still, the St. Francis Center had previously moved from outside dumpsters to a compactor because people visiting the center were always attempting to get into them.
“I think it’s more of a commentary on people’s fragile behavioral health needs and statuses,” Spinks says. “They’re choosing to go to areas and places that are inherently dangerous for the opportunity it can provide protection.”
As for Egloff, he went back to Louisiana to live with his sister.
I’m happy to be alive, but I still have a lot of physical and mental issues caused by that experience,” he says.
