Dunwoody woman rescued from trash chute

A Dunwoody woman was pulled from her apartment complex's trash chute, after falling in when trying to retrieve her cell phone.

Amanda Still, 19, was rescued Sunday morning by Dunwoody Police and the DeKalb Fire Department, according to a Dunwoody Police report.

The incident was called in to emergency responders at around 6 a.m. to the Gables Metropolitan apartments, located on the 7000 block of Madison Drive, the report says.

The emergency call came after the woman returned to her apartment from an early morning trip to McDonald's, Officer Timothy Fecht said. She told police she put her cell phone inside a McDonald's bag and then threw it into the complex's trash chute.

When she realized that she had thrown her phone into the trash, she attempted to lean in and retrieve it. She then fell down the chute, getting stuck between the second and first floors for a couple of hours, Fecht said.

No evidence of alcohol or other impairment was noted in the police report. Still was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta, Fecht said. She suffered no major injuries.

Fecht said the incident isn't the first time that police have responded to something like this. Most of the time, however, people get into trouble when there is open access to a trash compactor and someone is trying to shove garbage into it.

Still was lucky that trash was filling up the chute, which helped break her fall. Fecht said people should call someone in the building's maintenance before attempting to retrieve something out of the trash.

"These things are made as safe as possible. You have to use common sense," Fecht said. "If it's a major issue, you should contact maintenance instead of trying to do it yourself."

Still was also lucky that someone was with her and was able to call emergency responders. The woman could have suffocated if she was stuck in the chute too long without anyone knowing, Fecht said.

"Instead of an awkward situation ... it could have been worse," Fecht said.