Claim:
A video authentically shows a sanitation worker named Samuel saving a newborn baby from being crushed in his garbage truck’s compactor.
Rating:
A rumor that circulated online in November 2025 claimed a video authentically showed a sanitation worker named Samuel saving a crying newborn baby from being crushed in his garbage truck’s compactor.
One Snopes reader emailed, “I saw this story on [Facebook] reels about a sanitation worker who supposedly found a baby in the trash truck. The reel seemed like clickbait, and I couldn’t find independent verification of the story. Can you check it out?”
In the reader’s message, they linked to a 10-second video (archived) receiving around 29 million views. The Dailystories Facebook page hosted the clip.
The post’s text began as follows:
He was just about to pull the lever on the compactor. Then he heard a cry that didn’t belong…
Samuel has worked sanitation for twenty-five years. He’s a veteran of the 5 AM shift, a man who thought he’d seen everything the city could throw away.
He and his partner were running their route on a cold morning, the truck groaning as it worked. Samuel had just emptied a row of bins and reached for the lever to pack the load.
That’s when his partner yelled. “Sam, wait! I thought I heard something!”
Users widely shared the video, or the same story with a screenshot from the clip, on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), TikTok (archived), X (archived) and YouTube. Remarks from commenters, and the actions of users liking their comments, indicated they believed the screenshot or video — and the story — was true.
In short, the video was fake and generated with artificial intelligence.
Snopes contacted the managers of the Dailystories Facebook page via Messenger to ask which AI tools they used to write the story in the post’s caption, as well as which tools generated the video, and will update this article if we receive further information.
Signs the baby rescue video is product of AI
The AI-generated video claiming to show Samuel the sanitation worker rescuing a newborn baby exhibited numerous signs that, when combined, led to our firm conclusion of it being fake.
First, the clip lasts a mere 10 seconds, shorter than many authentic Facebook and TikTok videos users encounter online. AI tools generally limit text-to-video generation to very short durations.
The infant’s right hand does not appear to have a thumb until about four seconds into the video. The thumb does not simply appear to be initially obscured by the child’s other fingers, either.
Despite the distance from the purported camera, white and orange labels affixed to the garbage truck contain no legible text. Illegible text can be one of many signs of AI-generated images and videos.
Near the end of the clip, the driver’s side of the white or silver car in the background appears to be embedded into the row of buildings, as if it crashed sideways.
Additionally, there are no identifying details about when or where the supposed incident occurred — yet another sign of inauthentic content.
The driver’s side of the car visible in the background appears to be merging with the building, displaying one of several signs of the video’s AI-generated origins. (Dailystories/Facebook)
The Dailystories Facebook page hosted many other AI-generated videos showing alleged rescues of babies — all fake.
The Daily Stories YouTube channel, linked on the Dailystories Facebook page, also hosted AI-generated videos displaying YouTube-enabled labels for “altered or synthetic content.”
Other Facebook pages contained posts featuring AI-generated videos or pictures telling very similar stories of sanitation workers rescuing babies, including with a woman and two men.
Regarding the Dailystories post itself, the text featured dramatized writing resembling the same way AI tools tend to generate the conclusion of such stories. For example, the last section read: “Paramedics, alerted by the call, arrived moments later. But for those few minutes, a man whose job is to haul away the unwanted became a guardian, saving the one precious thing that never should have been thrown away.”
AI says AI-generated video is real, citing AI-written article
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting about a sanitation worker named Samuel rescuing an infant from a garbage truck. Had the rescue truly occurred, outlets worldwide would have covered the matter, just like they did in April 2025 when reporting a garbage collector in Rio de Janeiro found a baby next to a dumpster.
A glance above the unhelpful search results found Bing and Yahoo displayed AI-generated answers falsely claiming the story was true.
The Bing and Yahoo AI answers cited as their source an advertisement-filled, AI-generated article on a WordPress blog that contained some Vietnamese-language text. While AI-detection websites are far from foolproof, we noted ZeroGPT found a more than 94% likelihood of AI-written text in the article, while Copyleaks displayed a 100% likelihood.
Both Bing and Yahoo cited an advertisement-filled, AI-generated WordPress blog article as their source for this information. (Bing.com)
(Yahoo.com)
For further reading, we previously reported about the many Facebook pages and WordPress blogs largely managed from Vietnam that promoted fabricated stories about the July 2025 Texas flash floods.
