A Kentucky family is weighing legal action after their relative was allegedly scooped up and fatally crushed by a garbage claw.
Tyrah Adams, 35, died on February 12 while a solid waste crew was clearing a Louisville alley using a grappler truck during a ‘routine cleanup.’
Adams was homeless and known by locals to frequent the area near Cedar Street and was living behind a convenience store nearby.
The Jefferson County Coroner confirmed Wednesday that Adams’s cause of death was blunt force trauma, reported Wave 3.
For weeks, the city told family members that Adams had simply ‘come in contact’ with the vehicle and her death was an unfortunate accident.
‘A woman, who could not be seen by the crew, was in some of this garbage that was picked up and moved to another location before it was hauled away,’ Mayor Craig Greenburg said at the time. ‘And in the course of that, again unseen, the woman suffered injuries.’
But, the family’s attorney, Stephanie Rivas, claims there was more to the story. She is compiling information as the family prepares to sue the city in the next few weeks.
‘She didn’t walk into this truck,’ she said. ‘They physically picked her up with that claw, squeezed her, compressed her, and dropped her. And left her there to find her own help.’
Tyrah Adams, 35, died in February after an encounter with a Louisville Metro garbage truck
Adams’s family plans to file a lawsuit after they claim city employees did nothing to help her or prevent her death
Adams was allegedly scooped up along with a pile of trash by a grappler truck run by the city (file photo)
Witnesses told police that the trash grappler operator deboarded the crane after plopping Adams back on the ground, looked at the pile of garbage and returned to the vehicle.
‘No one went out and inspected the area where they were gathering up this trash. If they had just done that, they would have seen her,’ Rivas said. ‘They would not have picked her up.’
Adams got up on her own and walked to the convenience store. She collapsed in the doorway and was found by a store clerk and a customer who phoned 911, per police reports.
According to WDRB, Adams had blood coming out of her mouth and nose and was completely unable to speak.
The Metro sanitation workers who were operating the vehicle did not call for help. Adams died at the University of Louisville Hospital.
The Louisville Metro Police Department’s Public Integrity Unit reviewed surveillance footage, which corroborated witness accounts.
Adams’s sister, Sarah Akers, said the family was distraught and angry when they found out about her gruesome death.
Adams was homeless and lived in an alley behind a convenience store. She was within a pile of garbage when she was alllegedly scooped up
Adams’s sister Sarah Akers (right) and her attorney Stephanie Rivas (left) said the family has more than just money to gain from a lawsuit
‘Knowing that they didn’t help her at all — that’s where most of my anger comes from,’ she said.
‘Knowing what he had did and what he saw, he didn’t even have the decency to just help.’
The public works employees operating the garbage truck at the time have since been placed on leave, according to the City of Louisville.
Their truck was impounded by police amid the ongoing investigation.
Through their pending lawsuit, the family hopes not only to be compensated for Adams’s death but to receive more information about what exactly happened to her.
‘It’s just like being punched in the gut every single time something new comes out. But at the same time, it’s a relief that something more is being seen,’ Akers said.
She said they have yet to see video footage reviewed by police.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said Adams’s cause of death was ‘blunt force trauma’
‘I think that mostly everything is definitely questionable, I just want answers, I want to have justice for her,’ she said.
Akers told WHAS11 that she would remember her sister from her ‘bright smile’ and her ‘laughter.’
The sisters reunited in November after sporadic communication over the past several years.
‘We had gone so long without knowing where she was, or if she was okay,’ she said.
‘I could not imagine what she was fighting, demons-wise. Whatever she was going through. You know, people struggle with their own things in life.’
The Daily Mail contacted Louisville Public Works, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, the Louisville Metro Police and Rivas for comment.
