NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) — Police say a woman who had climbed into a Connecticut supermarket’s trash compactor suffered potentially life-threatening injuries when a store employee turned it on with her inside.

New London police say emergency personnel responded to the NSA Supermarket at about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday where they found the severely injured but conscious woman inside the industrial compactor.

The newspaper reports the employee threw some cardboard into the compactor before turning it on.

The woman was pulled free and taken to the hospital with undisclosed injuries.

She was not a store employee. Police tell The Day that store employees had been looking for the woman, who they suspected of stealing.


Her name wasn’t made public.

The investigation is ongoing.