Woman dies after fall down trash chute at Dayton high-rise

Dayton crews responded to a trap and rescue just before 10 a.m. in the 400 block of Dayton Towers Drive, according to the Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center.

Griffin, a resident of the apartment building, somehow fell down the trash chute on the seventh floor to the compactor in the basement, Johns said.

Although it is not clear how Griffin fell, Johns said police do not suspect foul play.

Griffin became “severely entrapped, severely entangled,” in the trash compactor in the basement, Nick Judge, a Dayton Fire Department district chief, said Monday. It is unknown how long she had been trapped before maintenance crews heard her yelling when they went to the basement to clean out the compactor, as they do daily.

Dayton police had contact with Griffin two days before she was found in the trash compactor.

She called police to her apartment around 1:30 p.m. Saturday and she appeared to be having mental health issues, Johns said. Officers spoke to her and cleared the scene and were notifying family members about her condition, he said.

Crews that responded to rescue Griffin from the trash compactor gave her “the best fighting chance to survive,” Judge said.

CareFlight and Miami Valley Hospital staff and the Montgomery County Waste from Republic Waste were called in to help, and they called a manufacturer in Alabama with additional knowledge on the equipment to take it apart without causing further complications, Judge said.

The hospital physicians and surgical team were able to provide life-saving measures above and beyond what rescue crews can typically do, he said.