AARON DAVIS, ESQ QUOTED BY NBC 6 MIAMI REGARDING SOUTH FLORIDA MAN CRUSHED BY DUMPSTER

A family is seeking justice after a South Florida man was crushed by a dumpster while he was working nearly three years ago.

The family of Antonio Pineda Jr. filed a lawsuit in 2017 for the maintenance supervisor’s October 2016 death. Pineda was cleaning up trash near a dumpster at an apartment complex in Miami Gardens when a waste management truck dropped the dumpster, crushing Pineda.

He was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital and died six days later.

“Every time I go to sleep that’s all I think about,” Antony Pineda, the victim’s son, said in a video deposition. “You play it over and over again in your head. How it could’ve happened. I don’t know.”

The family’s attorney, Aaron Davis, claims the driver of the truck, Niove Lara, was reckless and grossly negligent.

“The procedure was that my client would go into the dumpster area to clean garbage that had spilled out of the dumpster as it was lifted,” Davis explained. “The only way the garbage could be moved out of the way is after the dumpster had been raised up and before it went down again. So the driver of the waste management truck knew of that procedure, didn’t follow his own protocol, resulting in my client’s death.”

NBC 6 reached out to Lara’s attorney but received a statement by Waste Management Inc. instead.

“Safety is Waste Management Inc. of Florida’s highest priority,” the statement read. “This was a tragic accident. Mr. Pineda entered a confined area where a dumpster was being serviced, and in an area where he could not be seen.”

Davis alleges that Lara knew Pineda was there, cleaning.

“This is a procedure that waste management ratified, and agreed to, and condoned,” he said.

“I couldn’t say goodbye,” Antony Pineda said. “That’s the worst part.”