15 June 2013

Tuggeranong Teen re-enacts star wars garbage compactor scene

15 June 2013 | johnboy

ACT Policing has issued a warning regarding the dangers of entering or sleeping in dumpster bins following an incident earlier this morning (Saturday, June 15).

Around 4.40am Tuggeranong Patrol members responded to a report of a 15-year-old teenager trapped in the rear compactor of a commercial garbage truck.

The driver of the vehicle had emptied several large dumpster bins in the Greenway area and heard banging and yelling coming from the compactor at the rear of the vehicle.

Tuggeranong Patrol members responded and confirmed that the teenager was trapped in the compactor. He had been sleeping in a dumpster bin which was emptied into the compactor during the driver’s early morning rounds.

Police were able to shut the vehicle down and sight the teenager. He was located beneath an opening on the roof of the vehicle at the bottom of a two metre drop.

The teenager was not trapped, but had sustained injuries to his lower arms and wrists and could not be safely extracted due to the heights involved.

ACT Fire & Rescue and ACT Ambulance Service attended the scene. ACT Fire & Rescue members entered the compartment and extricated the teenager utilising ladders.

He was then treated on scene by ambulance members before being transported to The Canberra Hospital.

[Courtesy ACT Policing]

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Captain RAAF1:16 pm 17 Jun 13

Soylent Green is people!

Beau Locks11:28 pm 16 Jun 13

1 Not the most compassionate title for the story.

2 I don’t know the circumstances. I’m not sure any of other rioters that have commented here do, either. Maybe the lad was pissed, maybe sleeping rough, maybe running from a bad scene at home, maybe mentally ill. Regardless, falling asleep in a skip (and especially at this time of year) is a bit grim.

3 Yes it’s good to joke ha ha funny. Good thing he’s not dead etc. But given we don’t know what the circumstances are it mightn’t be very funny for anyone that’s actually involved in the story.

4 Although this may be completely unrelated to the reason the lad was in the skip, it’s worth nothing that the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness is not $1b. Overall the National Affordable Housing Agreement, which the NPAH is bolted on to, is around $1.2b. This is a pitiful amount, and f*** all as a proportion of GDP compared to what the average OECD country spends on social housing.

5 How did asylum seekers come into this? Oh, I see. Don’t get me started.

DrKoresh9:53 pm 16 Jun 13

PBO said :

It’s a shame when a family decides to throw out a perfectly good boy like that.

lol 😀 That one’s good, well done sir.

DrKoresh9:46 pm 16 Jun 13

sepi said :

The govt is actually spending untold billions trying not to let refugees in straight away. Because that is what they think the public wants them to do. so they spend billions and billions locking them up in squualid conditions and giving them nice mental illnesses, so they can then let 95% of them in to live next door to us anyway.

cheaper to just let them in to live in the community while being processed, and then when they are granted visas they are still normal, and not needing years of therapy.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/04/29/3745276.htm
“Furthermore, she finds the cost of offshore processing now runs into hundreds of millions of dollars – raising questions about the financial efficiency of the policy.”

Don’t even get me started. I can understand (or at least, I can accept) why the Coalition wanted to implement off-shore processing (i.e- most of their supporters are stupid, angry and scared) but I’m disgusted that Labor, our so-called “left-wing” party, capitulated to them. Hell, they practically pre-empted the idea of off-shore processing, as if to mollify their more conservative supporters. IMO, all they’ve achieved is to alienate their core base of voters. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m going to have to give all my support to the bloody Greens in September.

Shame on Labor, shame on the Liberals and if you agree with “stopping the boats” then shame on you too.

sepi9:12 pm 16 Jun 13

The govt is actually spending untold billions trying not to let refugees in straight away. Because that is what they think the public wants them to do. so they spend billions and billions locking them up in squualid conditions and giving them nice mental illnesses, so they can then let 95% of them in to live next door to us anyway.

cheaper to just let them in to live in the community while being processed, and then when they are granted visas they are still normal, and not needing years of therapy.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/04/29/3745276.htm
“Furthermore, she finds the cost of offshore processing now runs into hundreds of millions of dollars – raising questions about the financial efficiency of the policy.”

Woody Mann-Caruso8:47 pm 16 Jun 13

gazket said :

We have no money to help Australians sleeping in garbage bins. Yet we have a federal government proudly spending billions to help save illegal immigrants and put a roof at any cost over their heads.

No money, except for the $1.1 bn NPA on homelessness, and the many, many tens of billions made in social welfare payments each year to help prevent people getting there in the first place, you mean?

What’s the matter? Did a Nigerian refugee take your office job? Standard of living dropping markedly every time somebody makes it to Christmas Island without drowning? I bet you feel the pain every time you see one of them on your flat screen.

Here, diddums, have a hanky. I blew in it for you already.

Spiral7:21 pm 16 Jun 13

bundah said :

That’s a salient point and it reminds me of Bob Hawke’s comment way back in 1987,””We set ourselves this first goal – by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.”

Promises,promises something pollies are quite adept at but when it comes to the crunch sadly they fail miserably.

Give old Bob a break. Perhaps he meant: “by 1990 no Australian child will be living in Poverty”

Poverty is a place in Kentucky, US and it is quite possible no Australian child was living there in 1990! 🙂

Brianna5:39 pm 16 Jun 13

So, while we have people in housing places whinging about not having a big enough, tax payer funded property for their 5-8 kids, we also have people sleeping rough on the streets. What an eye opener……on the news tonight a man died in Melbourne while trying to sleep in a park. It got down to 5 degrees overnight in Melbourne……….how hard is it for the ACT homeless?

PBO5:02 pm 16 Jun 13

It’s a shame when a family decides to throw out a perfectly good boy like that.

Mr Evil3:21 pm 16 Jun 13

Maybe the ACT Goverment is actually taking a stand on homelessness – by bringing the NoWaste 2020 and the yet-to-be-announced “NoHomelessPeopleSleepingInDumpsters 2020” plan together?

bundah11:23 am 16 Jun 13

TheBusDriver said :

Kayem said :

Pork Hunt said :

poetix said :

Possibly homeless. Imagine living outside in this weather.

Do you think so? Most teenagers would have someone they can couch surf with.

How very presumptuous of you, sir. I’ve had people rock up to my house at the 11th hour asking if they can stay at my place rather than sleeping in their car. From there, it is only a hop, skip and a jump to not having a car to sleep in, not having friends to stay with, not having rellos to sleep with. Couch surfing is a temporary solution to an ongoing problem of homelessness. How very uncaring to suggest that the solution to homelessness is couch surfing.

As a bus driver I get all sorts of people who get on the late night services and go up the back to just sleep for the trip. They often know what seats have heaters under them and they choose those ones. When I drive govvy busses I feel sad to have to ask them to leave when we get to Tuggers or Belco. I’ve seen kids and teens in a sad plight. They get on the bus and you can tell they have not washed in days and are thin. Some pay, some don’t have the money. You get to know which ones are rough sleepers. They all head out of Civic where they get breakfast to Belco to get lunch then back to Civic for supper. On Fridays they hang around the Interchange asking for money while they wait for the night kitchen. There’s a lot more teens and kids on the streets than most people might expect. I’ve come to recognise a few of them and tell them if they sit and don’t bother people I won’t ask them for a fare because they need it more than the bus does.
It does not surprise me at all that they would be sleeping in a dumpster.
As a society, Canberra is all about caring for number 1, the family unit. We’ve let our homeless kids and teens down very badly.

That’s a salient point and it reminds me of Bob Hawke’s comment way back in 1987,””We set ourselves this first goal – by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.”

Promises,promises something pollies are quite adept at but when it comes to the crunch sadly they fail miserably.

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