(Photo: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer)A worker looks at a truck which unloads trash at a recycling centre in this file photo.

A trash worker was crushed to death in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday in a horrific accident involving a private recycling truck, police have reported.

The killed worker was teenager Luis Camarillo from the Bronx. According to reports, the 18 year old was working at the rear of a truck at a DUMBO recycling plant on Plymouth Street when the compactor mechanism came down on him, crushing him to death at about 10.30 a.m. ET.

Authorities described that the mechanism hit him in the chest before the truck's hydraulics system crushed him, in an incident that shocked workers at the plant.

Tony Lima, who works nearby, has told the New York Post: "The guy got squashed between the pay loader and the truck."

Once others realized what had happened emergency services were called and Camarillo was rushed to Long Island College Hospital, however, he was later pronounced dead the the medical center.

It is unclear how the accident came to happen, and the NYPD as well as federal agency OSHA are both investigating the circumstances of the death. Although at present no foul play is suspected by authorities, and it appears to have been a tragic accident.

OSHA has said that at the moment it is looking to see if any health and safety standards were violated by the plant that could have been responsible for the death. Surveillance video footage is currently being reviewed from the plant's camera systems.

According to the New York Post, Camarillo had only been working at the plant for about three weeks.