West Vancouver police say a 34-year-old Vancouver man is dead after becoming stuck in a clothing donation bin in the Ambleside area.
An off-duty physician was the first person to come across the victim on 13th Street next to the old police station, around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday. The doctor tried to pull the man out but was unable to.
The West Vancouver clothing donation bin where a man died Sunday morning. (Google Street View)
“He saw an unresponsive male stuck part way in the opening of a clothing donation bin. Fire and advanced life support EHS attended and were unable to resuscitate (the man),” said Const. Jeff Palmer, West Vancouver police spokesman. “It’s terribly tragic but appears accidental. Nothing at all suspicious and no indication of foul play.”
Investigators do not know how long the victim had been stuck before he was discovered, Palmer said. The bin has since been removed.
It now falls to the BC Coroners Service to determine the exact cause of death. The victim’s name is not being released.
This is the fifth time since 2015 that a person has died stuck in a donation bin, according to the coroner.
Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission is now calling for donation bins to be pulled off the streets until they can be made safe.
“It is absolutely gut wrenching to know another life has been lost in one of these bins. As a community, we all have a responsibility to protect our most vulnerable population, including those struggling with homelessness and clearly that’s not happening,” said Nicole Mucci, Union Gospel Mission spokeswoman. “We now know something bigger needs to happen. These bins need to be taken out of service until they’ve been designed to save lives, not take them.”
People only turn to clothing donation bins out of desperation for shelter or warmth, Mucci added.
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“It’s often driven out of a need for something for them to sustain life. To see a loss of life resulting from this is just devastating,” she said.
In 2018, UBC Okanagan engineering professor Ray Taheri led his first-year students to work on design concepts for safer donation bins after a number of high-profile deaths.
Taheri said the deaths are an example of what happens when engineers fail to consider unintended consequences of their designs.
“Generally speaking, it was a faulty design from the beginning. Eventually they have to do something more fundamental about those,” he said. “It has happened before and unfortunately it cost somebody’s life and it’s very sad.”
Taheri said in the coming year he will assign his fourth-year students to come up with a working prototype based on the concepts his students produced this year.
“There were quite a few innovative mechanisms that the students came up with,” he said.
The bin belongs to Inclusion BC, a non-profit that supports people with intellectual disabilities.
“Inclusion BC is very saddened to learn of the death of an individual in one of its clothing donation bins located in West Vancouver. Our deepest condolences go out to those affected by this tragic incident,” the statement from Inclusion BC executive director Karla Verschooor read.
“Safety is a top priority for Inclusion BC and our member organizations who participate in the clothing collection program. In the fall of 2018, we approached UBC Vancouver's Engineering department to work with our Canadian-based bin manufacturer to design a bin that would prevent people from entering them. Students have designed safety modifications that are in the prototype phase.”
In a statement, the District of West Vancouver acknowledged the loss but did not say whether other bins would be removed.
“The district is saddened by this loss and wishes to extend deepest condolences to the family. We await the results of the coroner's investigation and will co-operate with any recommendations arising from the investigation,” the statement read.
