A man has died in a horror accident after being buried under hot asphalt while trying to fix a dumpster truck.
Darrell Sheriff, a 41-year-old private contractor, had gone to collect the truck from AJ Materials in Jackson, Mississippi, on Monday morning, Jackson Police Department said.
Police said that Sheriff was under the truck repairing a hydraulic line when the tailgate opened and scalding hot asphalt poured on top of him.
People rushed to help, trying to clear the asphalt to save Sheriff but his “injuries were too enormous to survive,” Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said at a press conference.
Wade said there appears to have been “a malfunction” with the dumpster, with the incident being treated as an accidental death.
“It was horrific. It was horrifying and is something that you do not want to see. You know seeing him was one thing but actually talking to the family members and their hurt, their pain. Their shock,” the police chief said.
“You know this Monday morning, people are just going to work. They don’t want to hear about a family member who’s lost his life.”
Sheriff’s family remembered him as “a good, hardworking man who was just trying to make a living,” Wade said.
