A 43-year-old homeless man whose body was found among rubbish in a waste management depot in Dublin died due to suffocation.
The man was alive when he was picked up by a bin truck and delivered to a waste sorting facility in Ballymount, an inquest heard on Wednesday.
Henryk Piotrowski, originally from the Czech Republic, was sleeping rough around Dublin city centre. He suffered fatal compression injuries caused by the machinery he came into contact with after he was loaded into the truck along with the contents of the bin.
At Dublin Coroner's Court Panda Waste Management truck driver Linus Phipps said he began his route at 4am on August 23rd, 2013 collecting dozens of 1,100 litre commercial waste bins from schools, hotels and apartment blocks around Dublin.
The truck left Inchicore and travelled along James's Street, over to Christ Church and around the south inner city ending at Phoenix Park. "These are commercial bins not wheelie bins. They are about four times the size of a household bin," Mr Phipps said.
He returned to the depot to empty the truck at about 8.30am. His colleague Mark Andrews, a machine driver at the Ballymount waste depot began sorting through the load. He was operating 'the grab,' a claw like machine that sifts through mounds of rubbish.
“I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye a set of legs. I thought it was a mannequin at first as that would be quite common. But I got a bad feeling it was a body,” he said. When he moved the rubbish, he spotted shoes and socks and he got ‘the fright of my life’, he said.
He asked a colleague to look at the body to make sure it was a body before emergency services were contacted.
A friend of the deceased Roman Stoupj, said Mr Piotrowski, was a peaceful man with a quiet nature.
“He would never abuse anybody or start an argument or a fight,” Mr Stoupj said.
He added that he never saw the deceased sleeping in a bin. The night before his death Mr Stoupj said the man spent a few hours drinking with a group before going off in search of more alcohol. He was captured on CCTV footage at Dublin City Council Civic Offices walking towards Christ Church at 12.12am.
The cause of death was traumatic asphyxia, according to pathologist Dr Michael Curtis. The man was alive when he was picked up by the truck, Dr Curtis said.
The compression was caused by the effects of the machinery he came into contact with, the inquest heard. The man had sustained injuries consistent with an assault, including two black eyes and bruised lips, the autopsy found. Dr Curtis said the possibility that the man was assaulted, concussed and placed in the bin could not be excluded.
"The manner of his death was most tragic," Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said. The jury returned an open verdict.