By Cori Baynes

A routine day of work turned fatal for a Claxton Bay man yesterday. He was crushed by a garbage truck at the Forres Park landfill.

The dead man was identified as Bill Avalon George, 34, of Springvale, Claxton Bay who made a living off loading garbage trucks and scavenging items at the landfill.

According to police reports, around 2.55 am, George was asleep on a piece of plastic on the ground in the dump, when a garbage truck driven by Noel Olton, of 15 Enterprise Street, Longdenville, entered the facility to offload garbage.

The driver, who did not see George on the ground, reversed over him, crushing and killing him instantly.

At the family’s Springvale home yesterday, his mother, Molly, struggled to come to terms with her son’s tragic death.

Surrounded by relatives, George, a mother of 11, said that around 3.30 am, a worker at the dump informed her of her second son’s death.

“I went across to the dump but I couldn’t watch because as a mother, I couldn’t bear to see him like that,” she said softly.

“Half his face was disfigured and his body was mashed up. All I wanted to do was get him off the ground before corbeaux come and drag him away.”

George described her son as a “willing and loving” person who always helped her around the house.

“Although he used to hustle in the dump, he was a handyman and could have done anything,” she said.

“The last thing he did was to help me put up the louvres in the house.

“His only fault was that he used to smoke but he was a good child.”

Coming from a poor family, George confessed that she did not have enough money to afford him a proper burial.

“As you can see, we are very poor but all of us will put up money and by the grace of God we will get through this,” George said, pointing to the walls of her humble home.

However, she expressed doubt about the moments leading up to the incident, claiming that her son never slept on the ground.

“I never know him to sleep on the ground. He have a mattress that he does lie down on, and I have a hard time believing that he was asleep on the ground in the dump just so.

“I am very hurt to know that he had to die that way,” she said.

Cpl Mohammed of the Couva Police Station is continuing investigations.