Falling down a garbage chute

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/woman-falls-down-garbage-chute-trying-retrieve-cel/nLQsj/

DUNWOODY, Ga. —

Rescue crews pulled a teen from a garbage chute after she fell into it head-first on Sunday.

Dunwoody police said the teen dropped her cellphone down the chute at the Gables Metropolitan apartments, and fell in while trying to recover it. She was lodged between the second and first floors for more than an hour.

"I was on my neck hanging down," 19-year-old Amanda Still told Channel 2’s Carl Willis.

Still said she went to throw out some garbage early Sunday morning when she noticed her phone tumbling down the chute with the trash. When she lunged to save it, she said her whole body passed through a small opening sending her down the chute.

"If I would have been by myself I would have died," she said.

A friend who was with her called 911, police said. Still said trash bags that were lodged in the chute stopped her from going all the way down to the ground level and into the trash compactor.

"The paramedics and the fire department said if there wouldn't have been trash down there I'd have gone right into the compactor," she said. "My head was this close into the compactor."

Rescuers with the DeKalb County Fire Department moved the compactor to get Stills out. She was hospitalized afterward.

Now that the ordeal is over with, Still said she fears the apartment complex may sue her for damages to the equipment.

"I could have died, and they're just talking about this stupid trash chute," she said.

An apartment representative told Willis over the phone that they're just happy Still wasn't seriously injured.

They said a lawsuit hadn't crossed their minds.

Still never got her phone back, but said she's thankful she made it out.

"I'm just glad that I'm alive and I thank God that I'm alive because I could have suffocated," she said.