Woman dies after found stuck partially inside a clothing donation bin

January 8, 2019

A woman found partially inside a west-end clothing donation bin and without vital signs was pronounced dead early Tuesday morning.

Emergency crews were called around 1:30 a.m. ET to the Dovercourt Road-Bloor Street area after receiving reports that a woman was inside the bin.

Paramedics performed CPR on her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene, Toronto EMS told CBC Toronto.

The circumstances surrounding the incident do not appear suspicious and the death is likely accidental, police told CBC video producer Tony Smyth at the scene.

Last week, The Canadian Press reported at least seven Canadians have died after getting stuck in clothing donation bins, leading one advocate in B.C. to call them “death traps.”

Late last month, a 34-year-old man died in a West Vancouver donation bin, while a 32-year-old man was found dead inside a bin in Cambridge, Ont., last November.

The bins’ hatches are designed to prevent theft of donations. But they can also trap someone leaning in too far.

The spate of deaths has led some to call for the bins to be redesigned or removed.

Loretta Sundstrom, whose 45-year-old daughter died in 2015 after getting stuck in a bin, told CBC’s World Report last week that she cried at news of the man’s death in West Vancouver. She said something must be done about the bins’ safety risk.

“Shut them all down,” she said. “Shut them all down and get a designer and redesign these things.”

In the wake of the man’s death, West Vancouver closed all of its bins.