An Australian man who fell unconscious after a night out drinking with friends woke up as he was being crushed in the back of a rubbish truck.

Wayne Griffin, 40, a retail manager from Perth, Western Australia, had dinner with friends at his house before going out to the pub about ten days ago. He told reporters today that he doesn't remember how or where he passed out, only what brought him round.

He regained consciousness amid the roar of the truck and the smell of garbage, and started screaming and banging on the walls.

"The pressure just pushed my shoulders together to the point where it broke my arm and my ribs and my eyes were almost out of their sockets," said Mr Griffin.

"I've just gone into this automatic save-myself mode, not knowing where I was but knowing that I was in a dangerous position."

Luckily for Mr Griffin, by chance the driver of the rubbish truck got out of his cab to put a lid on a bin because it had started raining, and heard the noise coming from his truck.

"At first... he thought it was rats or something but then it was too loud for it to be rats. So he obviously thought it was someone in there,'' he said. "If he hadn't have got out to go and put the lid on the bin he wouldn't have heard me.''

The driver managed to open a hatch, remove Mr Griffin and take him to hospital, where he remains.

News of Mr Griffin's ordeal first emerged two days ago when police asked for help in tracking down three men shown on CCTV cameras carrying him down James Street, in North Perth, and heaving him into a skip.

Mr Griffin, who maintains that he had fewer than 10 drinks on the night in question, believes his drinks were spiked and that he was later mugged.

"They've stolen my wallet, got a bit frightened and come back and tried to cover me up with a couple bags of rubbish," said Mr Griffin, who believes he was put in the bin for a joke. "I think they failed to realise that it actually gets picked up by a truck."

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