A man is lucky to be alive after surviving a ride in the rear of a garbage truck that was on its way to the Yolo County Landfill.

According to Yolo County Sheriff’s Lt. Martin Torres, a man looking for his wallet inside a garbage bin in the North Highlands of Sacramento area got stuck in the Atlas trash truck when it made its pick-up Tuesday afternoon.

Torres said in his 27 years of work he hasn’t heard of similar incidents.

“The man said he was stuck in the truck for about an hour, but estimates show it was more like 3 or 3 1/2 hours,” Torres said. “The truck made several other pick-ups before arriving at the landfill, where the driver saw the man crawl out of his trash pile.”

The driver found the man at about 1 p.m. Tuesday. The man said he was fine but was taken to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento for complaints of back and neck pain.

Torres said when trash is dumped at the landfill a bulldozer immediately spreads it out.

“The driver saw the man and alerted the driver of the bulldozer,” Torres said. “He would have been run over and killed.”

Torres said it was near the end of the day, so the truck wasn’t full of trash. If it had been earlier in the day — and the truck was filled to capacity — the trash would have been compacted by a blade at the bottom of the bin.

“The trucks use pressure to compact the trash, so he could have been squashed,” Torres said. “The man said he used lumber found in the trash to try to pull himself to the top and avoid being compacted.”

Torres said the man referred to the truck as a coffin.

“He’s very lucky to be alive,” Torres said.