Garbage Truck Crew Saves Puppy from Trash Bin Thanks to Lucky Accident

He wasn’t meant to find the dog but fate had other plans. Back in April, City of Milwaukee sanitation workers Naz Nalls and his partner Omar were doing what they do every day: collecting trash on their route. It was an ordinary day—until one garbage bin unexpectedly fell off the truck before it could be dumped into the compactor. 

That almost never happens. “Usually, it don’t fall off. That’s what’s crazy about this. I feel like it was kind of destiny,” Naz said.

When the workers looked inside the bin, they made a heartbreaking discovery. Buried beneath garbage was a frail, malnourished dog. But despite whatever he had endured, the dog was friendly.

Following protocol, the crew contacted their supervisor, Alex Halverson—who just happened to already be on his way to check on that exact crew.

The moment Alex lifted the dog from the trash, something special happened. “He let me pick him up,” Alex recalled.

The starving dog eagerly devoured the two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Alex had packed for lunch.

Sadly, sanitation crews sometimes find animals in garbage bins, alive and dead. Alex knew exactly who to call: Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC). But rather than wait for pickup, he personally drove the dog there himself.

MADACC cared for the dog and placed him in foster care. As part of their process, Alex was given first opportunity to adopt him. And as fate would have it, Alex had already been thinking about getting a second dog.

“What stood out was that after everything he’d been through, he still trusted people,” Alex said. “He hasn’t met a single person he doesn’t want pets from.”

Alex adopted him and named him PJ—after the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that may have been his first good meal in a long time.

“God knows what he went through,” Alex said. “He was buried under garbage and still super friendly. He rolled over for belly rubs right away.”

Someone had discarded PJ like trash. Yet somehow, the garbage bin fell off the truck on the one day it wasn’t supposed to. The right people looked inside. And a man who was already hoping to adopt a dog happened to arrive at exactly the right moment.

Call it destiny. Call it luck. Call it fate. PJ got a second chance—and this time, he finally found the family he always deserved.