Vancouverite calls for changes after the death of a homeless woman in a box of clothing donations

A woman in her 30s died after being stuck in a garbage can of used clothing in West Vancouver early Monday morning, prompting Saskia Wolsak make a call to make used containers safer. help the homeless woman who is stuck.

"If it was a stroller or a car, [these donation bins] would be recalled," Wolsak said. "It can not be what these charities really want."

Wolsak lives near the West Point Gray Community Center, where the woman died. She said that she woke up around 4 am when she heard a man shout, "Some help!"

"It did not look like party goers or to people at the beach. 19659006] "It was like an animal trap"

After finding the man, some neighbors had also arrived

The man told them that his girlfriend was stuck in mid – in the trash and he asked them to "She was just pinned in there, and she did not answer," Wolsak said.

Some people tried "very, very gently" to get the woman out, said Wolsak, but one of the neighbors said that the design was clearly done to keep objects – and inadvertently people.

"It was like an animal trap designed not to release it," says Wolsak.

"I can not leave this man"

When the police arrived, they called an ambulance and a fire truck. They then told the neighbors to disperse.

But when Wolsak came home, she realized that she had left the woman's boyfriend behind her, alone and crying.

"I went home and thought that I could not leave this man if he needed companionship," she said.

When Wolsak came back, the man was sitting alone. She stayed with him until the truck arrived

She said that it took 10 officers and several power tools to try to extract the woman.

The man told Wolsak that he and his girlfriend, originally from Russia, had been together for eight years.

"He was really clueless, he was crying," said Wolsak.

They had just gone through a difficult period. He told Wolsak that they had been evicted from their home and that they had been doing lying surfing.

A police officer came to them and told the man that he was sorry for his loss, and offered help to victim services.

Eventually, the man told Wolsak that he could not stand watching his girlfriend's body come out of the trash.

"A Multilevel Social Problem"

When Wolsak returned home, she went online to investigate deaths caused by being trapped in donation bins – and fell on several cases in North America. a man from Surrey was found dead after being caught in a garbage can near Guilford in 2016. The previous year, Anita Hauck, homeless advocate, died in a basket of clothes in 2015 after being trapped behind

. "I realize that it's a multi-level social issue," she said.

"I think it is obviously important to treat all lives and deaths equally and with as much respect and to raise a flag if there is a systemic problem."

She wants to see the revised bins design so that they are not as dangerous.

The B.C. Coroners Service said that it was in the early stages of its investigation into the death of the woman, who was in her thirties.

Wolsak returned to the community center later in the day to drop a bouquet of flowers in honor of the deceased woman.

From here, the trash and its surrounding contents had been removed.

With files by Meera Bains