A man whose body was found sticking out of a charity bin at a Westfield shopping center appeared to have broken his neck while trying to search for donated clothing.
The man was trapped headfirst inside the slide on the central coast of New South Wales while doing a practice known as ‘bin surfing’ or ‘dumpster diving’.
“We think he was surfing, fell and broke his neck,” a police source told Daily Mail Australia.
It is understood the man lost his balance on a bicycle he had been using to get up and look for clothes inside the bin.
Police believe a man whose body was found protruding from a charity bin (above) broke his neck while trying to search for clothes.
Emergency services were called to Westfield Tuggerah on the NSW Central Coast (pictured) about 4.25am on Tuesday.
Emergency services were called to Westfield Tuggerah about 4.25am on Tuesday after a passer-by saw legs hanging from the charity bin.
Officers arrived to find the body of a man trapped inside the slide, and witnesses saw a bicycle lying on the ground at the base of the container.
A crime scene was set up at the east end of the Wyong Road car park.
A Westfield worker told Daily Mail Australia that two of his colleagues, who work at a nearby bakery, walked past the bins about 3am on their way to work.
In the darkness of the morning, they saw a bicycle lying on the ground under the containers, but did not notice the body sticking out.
“We’re told he stood up on his bike to support himself while trying to get things out of the container, but the bike fell and he was trapped,” said the man, who wishes to remain anonymous.
‘It is very sad. They have to do something to prevent people from entering them, like an internal latch or something.
Police do not consider the man’s death suspicious.
“We think he was surfing, fell and broke his neck,” a police source told Daily Mail Australia.
The bodies of two women and a teenager were found dead in charity containers in three different incidents in as many months of 2021.
Mikki O’Shea, 43, died after becoming trapped in a charity bin behind a Gold Coast shopping center in April 2021.
Three months later, the body of 33-year-old mother-of-one Alarrah Lawrence was found hanging “half in, half out” of a charity bin in Rockingham, south of Perth.
Teenager Spencer Benbolt Jnr, 13, was also crushed to death when the bin he was sleeping in was emptied into a garbage truck in Port Lincoln, South Australia.
A woman suffered the same fate inside a charity bin at Moonee Ponds, northwest of Melbourne, in July 2020, as did a man in Sydney in 2015.