Bog Standard #2

Following on from yesterdays blog here are further hazards associated with the smallest room in the house.........

Some instances of toilet-related deaths are attributed to the drop in blood pressure due to the parasympathetic nervous system during bowel movements. This effect may be magnified by existing circulatory issues.

It is further possible that people succumb on the toilet to chronic constipation, because the Valsalva maneouvre is often dangerously used to aid in the expulsion of faeces from the rectum during a bowel movement. This means that people can die while "straining at stool." In chapter 8 of their Abdominal Emergencies, David Cline and Latha Stead wrote that "autopsy studies continue to reveal missed bowel obstruction as an unexpected cause of death".

A 2001 Sopranos episode "He is Risen" shows a fictional depiction of the risk, when the character Gigi Gestone has a heart attack on the toilet of his social club while straining to defecate.

In the Victorian era, there was a perceived risk of toilets exploding.

These scenarios typically include a flammable substance either accidentally or deliberately being introduced into the toilet water, and a lit match or cigarette igniting and exploding the toilet. The technology of toilets has not really progressed in the last century and more as illustrated by an event in 2014 when a branded fitting ,Sloan's Flushmate pressure-assisted flushing system which uses compressed air to force waste down the drain was recalled after the company received reports of the air tank failing under pressure and shattering the porcelain.

There have been well documented incidences in history to clearly illustrate the love/hate relationship of Man and his plumbing installations.

In 1945, the German submarine U-1206 was sunk after a toilet malfunctioned, resulting in water coming in to the submarine, which when coming into contact with a battery, created chlorine gas, meaning the submarine had to resurface. At the surface, they were sunk by Allied Forces.

King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia was murdered with a spear while sitting in the garderobe on August 4, 1306.

George II of Great Britain died on the toilet on October 25, 1760 from an aortic dissection. According to Horace Walpole's memoirs, King George "rose as usual at six, and drank his chocolate; for all his actions were invariably methodic. A quarter after seven he went into a little closet. His German valet de chambre in waiting heard a noise, and running in, found the King dead on the floor." In falling he had cut his face.

Professor Ioan P. Culianu was shot dead while on the toilet in the third-floor men's room of Swift Hall on the campus of the University of Chicago on 21 May 1991, in a possibly politically-motivated assassination. His killer has never been caught.

Edmund II of England died of natural causes on November 30, 1016, though some report that he was stabbed in the bowels while attending the outhouse.

Similarly, Uesugi Kenshin, a warlord in Japan, died on April 19, 1578, with some reports stating that he was assassinated on the toilet.

Lenny Bruce died of a heroin overdose on August 3, 1966 while sitting on the toilet, with his arm tied off.

Elvis Presley died, aged 42, on August 16, 1977, in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. "Sitting on the toilet, he toppled like a toy soldier and collapsed onto the floor, where he lay in a pool of his own vomit. His light blue pyjamas were around his ankles." according to someone first on the scene, "For some reason—perhaps involving a reaction to the codeine and attempts to move his bowels — he experienced pain and fright while sitting on the toilet. Alarmed, he stood up, dropped the book he was reading, stumbled forward, and fell face down in the fetal position. He struggled weakly and drooled on the rug. Unable to breathe, he died."

According to medical speculation, a plausible cause of Elvis' death was that previously mentioned Valsalva maneuovre (essentially straining on the toilet leading to heart stoppage — plausible because Elvis suffered constipation, a common reaction to drug use)

Air Canada Flight 797 was destroyed on June 2, 1983 with 23 fatalities after an in-flight fire began in or around the rear lavatory.

Michael Anderson Godwin, a convicted murderer in South Carolina who had his sentence reduced from death by the electric chair, sat on the metal toilet in his cell while fixing his television. When he bit one of the wires, the resultant electric shock killed him. Another convicted murderer, Laurence Baker in Pittsburgh, was electrocuted while listening to the television on home-made earphones while sitting on a metal toilet.

A collision between a disabled Cessna 182 and a row of portable toilets on May 2, 2009 at Thun Field (south-east of Tacoma), despite an engine failure at 150 feet (46 m) altitude, ended without fatalities; The toilets "kind of cushioned things" for the 67-year-old pilot.

British businessman and Conservative politician Christopher Shale was found dead in a portable toilet at the Glastonbury Festival on June 26, 2011. It is suspected he died of a heart attack.

Aboard ship the head and fittings associated with the head are cited as one of the most common reason for the sinking of tens of thousands of boats of all types and sizes.Heads typically have through-hull fittings located below the water line to draw flush water and eliminate waste. Boats are sunk when fittings fail or the toilet back siphons.

Urban legends have been reported regarding the dangers of using a toilet in a variety of situations.

Several of them have been shown to be questionable. These include some cases of the presence of venomous spiders  although in the Australian outback the Redback spider who has reputation for hiding under toilet seats. These recent fears have emerged from a series of hoax emails originating in the Blush Spider hoax, which began circulating the internet in 1999.

Spiders have also been reported to live under seats of aircraft, however, the cleaning chemicals used in the toilets would result in an incompatibility with spider's survival.

In large cities like New York City, sewer rats often have mythical status regarding size and ferocity, resulting in tales involving the rodents crawling up sewer pipes to attack an unwitting occupant. Of late, stories about terrorists booby trapping the seat to castrate their targets have begun appearing.

Another myth is the risk of being sucked into an aircraft lavatory as a result of vacuum pressure during a flight.

I used to spend a lot of time in the loo as a natural refuge from everyday life. Book in hand it is a nice place to be.

I will have to review my position in the light of the hazards and perils now associated with this natural process.