Garrett Joseph Franklin Elsey died when wheelie bin he sought refuge in was picked up by lorry and automatically tipped in

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A drunken student was crushed to death in a bin lorry less than 24 hours after arriving in the UK, an inquest has heard.

The Canadian graduate Garrett Joseph Franklin Elsey had drunk more than seven pints of beer and had four shots of Jägermeister to celebrate his first night in Bristol.

But after he was asked to leave a night club and became separated from a friend, the 22-year-old found himself lost with no mobile phone.

He decided against walking through an unfamiliar city back to his student digs and instead sought refuge in a wheelie bin. However, unbeknown to him, a weekly collection was due to take place a few hours later.

The giant container he was in was hoisted above head height and tipped into the back of the lorry.

Three binmen who had been on duty that morning told a coroner the process was automatic and none of them had heard Elsey cry for help above the loud noise of the lorry's hydraulic machinery.

It was not until the vehicle was emptied at a landfill site that the horrific discovery of a dead body was made.

Elsey's inquest heard that his official cause of death was given as traumatic asphyxia.

The pathologist Dr Amanda Jeffrey said a postmortem examination found high levels of alcohol in the deceased's bloodstream and he also showed early signs of hypothermia.

"The levels were 144 micrograms per 100 millilitres of blood," she said. "As a reference point, the legal driving limit is 80.

"A person who had drunk this amount of alcohol would be showing obvious signs of drunkenness – staggering and some slurring of their words.

"It's possible that the combination of alcohol and his body warmth led to an increased risk of hypothermia.

"People suffering with hypothermia can often become very confused and make strange decisions … they may seek refuge in confined spaces."