A man sleeping in a Southeast Portland Dumpster sustained severe injuries Thursday when the contents were dumped into a recycling truck and crushed.

"The truck driver started compacting all the cardboard when he heard screams," said Tommy Schroeder, Portland Fire & Rescue Public Information Officer.

“The driver stopped immediately and called 9-1-1-,” he said. “Our crews got there about 8:30 a.m.”

Schroeder said the man had climbed into the cardboard recycling Dumpster outside the People’s Food Co-Op in the 3000 block of S.E. 21st Avenue.

“The crews were able to get into the truck and pull out piles and piles of cardboard,” Schroeder said. “The patient had severe injuries to his upper body.”

Extracting the man was tricky, Schroeder said, because of all the cardboard.

“There was so much and under such pressure that they were worried about it collapsing,” he said. “As soon as they could reach the man’s face, one of the firefighters braced himself against all the cardboard. It was not a technical rescue, but they needed to get him out of there quickly.”

Liam O'Grady, 27, was taken to the trauma unit at OHSU Hospital.

--Tom Hallman Jr.