WASTE MANAGEMENT SUED FOR INJURING WOMAN STRUCK BY TRASH TRUCK

By Miriam Raftery

August 14, 2023 (El Cajon)—Attorneys representing a woman who was struck by a Waste Management trash truck and seriously injured held a press conference today at a Waste Management dump site in El Cajon to announce a lawsuit against the trash collection and recycling company.

 “On February 5, 2021, Deanna Beck was walking through the parking garage in her apartment complex, in a designated crosswalk, when an employee of Waste Management Cesar Colin skewered her with the metal tines of the garbage truck he was operating in the course and scope of his employment,”  states a press release issued by S. Harris Communications on behalf of her attorneys,  John Gomez and Corey Garrard with Gomez Trial Attorneys.

The lawsuit filed in Superior Court contends that Beck suffered brain trauma, neck injuries and dysautonomia, a disorder of the central nervous system.

The violent impact was caught on both the parking garage surveillance cameras and the dash cam of the Waste Management truck driven by Cesar Colin.

One of those videos shows that Beck was walking through the parking garage in her apartment complex in Mission Valley in a designated crosswalk when she was struck and knocked to the ground by a sharp tine on the back of the truck. 

View video (warning, graphic content)

The plaintiff contends that the driver was making a phone call when he backed into Beck and injured her, and that he had received multiple warnings for this in the past.

Beck worked as a trainer for  Sea World, but has been unable to return to her job due to the injuries,  her lawyers have said.

ECM news partner 10 News reports that a spokesperson for Waste Management has declined to comment on the lawsuit, which is expected to go to trial in October.

This is the second incidence of a trash truck striking and injuring someone locally in the past two weeks.  ECM previously reported on Leysl Muñoz, an 87-year-old  Crest resident who was seriously injured when an EDCO trash truck backed into her golf cart on July 28 in Crest. She reportedly suffered compound fractures and faces a long recovery.