Authorities Monday identified a 60-year-old transient who died while apparently trying to access the contents of a clothing donation bin in the Chollas Creek area.
A maintenance worker found Dennis Johnson’s body partially suspended from a metal clothing donation box in a parking lot at 5348 University Ave. about 7:15 a.m. Friday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office. The parking lot serves the International Rescue Committee, an organization that provides refugee resettlement and immigration services.
The San Diego man was found “unresponsive and partially suspended by the upper portion of his chest,” the medical examiner’s office reported. The maintenance worker called 911, but Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
Johnson’s cause of death was pending, but appeared similar to that of a 54-year-old man who suffocated after getting stuck in a donation bin in July in South Los Angeles.
In San Diego, at least two other people have been rescued after getting stuck while trying to access donation boxes. Last month, a man was trapped in a Mission Valley donation bin until firefighters arrived and freed him, and he was later arrested.
On April 1, a woman became trapped in a bin outside an East Village grocery store and was reportedly unconscious when rescued by paramedics, who rushed her to a hospital.
—City News Service
