A 48-year-old sanitation worker sustained severe leg injuries after he was run over by a garbage truck early Tuesday morning in Essex, Baltimore County police said.

Three emergency units responded to a call of an injured worker around 2 a.m. Tuesday, and transported the man, an employee of Marlyn Refuse Service Inc., to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, fire officials said. The man had attempted to step onto his truck during the early-morning route on Delaware Avenue near Lorraine Avenue, and slipped on a wet step. He then fell onto the roadway and was accidentally run over by the garbage truck.

Baltimore County contracts with Marlyn Refuse Service, an Essex-based company, for waste collection. Phone calls to the company's offices were not answered on Tuesday.

Police had no word on the man's condition, but said the man's injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

Officials from Maryland Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, were called out to investigate the incident, fire officials said.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of injuries to employees in the nation's "waste management and remediation" sector, which includes sanitation workers, has decreased since 2006. In 2008, the last year for which data is available, about 5.5 of every 100 full-time workers in this sector were injured, compared to 6.5 in 2006.

jtorbati@baltsun.com

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