[Editor’s note: This story is true as far as I know, and comes from the I Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department.]
Woman reportedly injured by exploding toilet at GSA building – WTOP.com
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=109&sid=2565294
WASHINGTON — A toilet reportedly exploded Monday and injured a woman at the General Services Administration Building in D.C.
The D.C. Fire and EMS Department confirms a woman went to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
“The GSA National Capital Regional Office Building experienced a building mechanical incident, which we understand may have resulted in injuries,” a GSA statement reads.
Channel 9 (WUSA) reports a memo made the rounds in the GSA building, warning people not to flush.
“Do NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water,” Channel 9 quotes the memo as saying.
“Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets … There has been damage to flushed toilets that has resulted in injuries.”
The GSA has refused to respond to specific questions, only referring to its statement.
“The restrooms are back in service, and mechanical systems are being monitored as we speak,” the statement says.
The incident is not the first of its kind in the United States. A trial lawyer in Memphis, Tenn., Parke Morris, says he represented a client who was seriously injured when a urinal exploded in a GSA building.
Morris says the client told him he was working on a Saturday at the Federal Courthouse in Memphis when he used the sixth floor men’s bathroom.
“This was an old, kind of primitive urinal that had almost like a gas pedal that you would press down when you were finished doing your business,” Morris says. “And he pressed it, and it literally exploded. It was like a porcelain hand grenade went off.”
Morris says the explosion blew the man backwards onto the floor and severely injured his knee. He required a surgery and seven months of rehab before he could return to work.
After the man was blown back, he called down to the security desk and had a guard come up to help him.
“I don’t know if [the guard] didn’t believe him, or couldn’t believe what he saw, but he decided to flush the urinal next to the one that was now in pieces. That one exploded as well.”
Morris said in total, four urinals exploded in that Memphis bathroom that day and it was later determined to be caused by a problem in the water pressure.
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