A Kentucky woman was k!lled after a garbage truck accidentally picked her up and crushed her.
The family of the woman are set to pursue legal action against the city after the county coroner confirmed the woman’s cause of de@th was blunt force and compressional trauma.
For weeks, Louisville police asserted that 35-year-old Tyrah Adams di£d after having “come into contact” with a garbage truck during a “routine” cleanup in an alley.
Adams, who was living as an unhoused woman, was picked up by a garbage truck that used a hydraulic claw on Feb. 12, 2026, while it was trying to clear debris, Louisville Public Media reported. Truck operators reportedly did not see Adams and later released her from the claw.
Adams’ family believes that she then walked to a nearby convenience store, where a worker and a customer called 911.
After being transported to the hospital, Adams di£d of her injuries.
“She didn’t walk into this truck. They physically picked her up with that claw, squeezed her, compressed her, and dropped her. And left her there to find her own help,” Stephanie Rivas, the family’s attorney, told Fox19.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office determined Adams di£d of blunt force trauma and compressional trauma from the garbage truck. Her d£ath was listed as accidental, according to the Courier-Journal.
A spokesperson for the Public Works said the two garbage truck workers had been placed on leave, Wave3 reported.
But Adams’ family wants more answers about why the 35-year-old hadn’t been seen in the first place.
A police report, obtained by Wave3, found that the person operating the truck’s crane picked up the pile of trash, set it back down and got out of their seat to look at the pile. However, the operator then returned to the driver’s seat and pulled the truck forward.
“Knowing that they did not help her at all – that’s where most of my anger comes from,” Sandra Akers, Adams’ sister, told Fox19.
“Knowing what he had did and what he saw, he didn’t even have the decency to just help,” Akers added.
After Adams went to the convenience store, she collapsed in the doorway, according to reports.
Rivas said she believes Adams’ family has not been given all the available information.
Rivas told Louisville Public Media that Adams’ family had not seen footage from an outward-facing camera attached to the truck or from nearby surveillance cameras.
She also claimed that her investigators inspected the truck and found that one internal camera had been “covered up.”
“They had to get out of the truck to operate that equipment, but had they done the extra step that they were required to do and inspected the area, they would have found Tyrah,” Rivas told Louisville Public Media. “This was completely preventable on their part.”