Ben Forrer's Truck Mistaken For Scrap Metal And Destroyed

Ben Forrer thought he was helping the environment when he put an old metal cooker in his white Citroen Relay truck and brought some scrap metal to be recycled.

Problem is, the employees thought his truck was the scrap metal and ripped off its roof, according to The Mirror.

Forrer, 33, a fireman in Swinford, England, brought the cooker in his trusty 12-year-old truck to the Sita scrapyard 16 miles away in Coventry, and had only left it alone for three minutes before workers started ripping it apart.

"When I went back to my van it was missing. As I walked around the yard I became more panicky," he told The Mirror. "Then I saw it hanging from the big blue scrapyard crane, swinging side to side. I shouted: ‘No, no, stop.’ They were looking at me like I was mad. I ran towards the crane. The driver put the van down on the floor and looked at me like I was a bit crazy. The roof was crushed in and the windows smashed from the grabber.”

By the time, Forrer got the workers attention, the van was already destroyed, as were the power tools he kept in the back.

Adding immobility to injury, Forrer was left stranded without a vehicle and had to get a friend to pick him up and take him home, according to The Telegraph.

Forrer isn't just angry that nobody bothered to check to see who owned the van, or that no one was inside.

"I was furious because even though it was a bit old it still had loads of life in it," he told The Daily Mail. "They said they thought it was a bit odd that the tax was in date, and the tires were OK."

Forrer estimates the damage to be around $7,855 and is insulted that he only got $15 for the cooker he brought to the scrapyard for a friend.

A spokesman for the scrapyard that destroyed the car said the company has now changed its policy by making sure workers only destroy cars that have the word "scrap" spray painted on it.

In addition, the company is working with Forrer to pay him a reasonable sum.

“This was an unfortunate incident and we have apologized," a spokesman for SITA UK told The Express. "Our insurance company is working to resolve this as quickly as possible.”