Just using—let alone falling into—a public pit toilet is enough to make anyone squirmy.
A small, enclosed space. Complete darkness. A mountain of human feces. It's the recipe for a nightmare, and it's one that an unfortunate Michigan woman experienced first-hand last week.
On September 19, rescue crews in Otsego County, Michigan received the call: A visitor at the Dixon boat launch had found a woman at the bottom of an outhouse, screaming for help.
The woman had climbed in to retrieve her Apple Watch, which had fallen off her wrist into the cesspool. She went in prepared,—fashioning a rescue rope to climb back up out of items she found in her car.
She'd attached her makeshift rope to a handicap railing outside of the toilet. Unfortunately, as Lieutenant Carrol, a public information officer with the Michigan State Police, told Outside Online, "She believed she would go down there and then use the strap to climb back up. She didn't have the strength to get herself back up."
Following the 911 call, crews from three different agencies were called to the scene. They managed to hoist the women to safety.
"She was covered in feces," Lieutenant Carrol said. "Crews rinsed her off and the EMS team checked her out but she was okay."
David Osmond, Getty Images
You'd think falling into a pit toilet would be an isolated incident. But this recent episode echoes a 2022 incident in which a woman fell into a pit toilet in Washington while trying to save her iPhone. The woman disassembled the seat and housing of the toilet to expose the poopy pit, then made a makeshift harness out of a dog leash. Bracing herself on the dog leash, she'd leaned out over the pit to reach the device. Unfortunately, she lost her balance and the dog leash-harness wasn't enough to keep her from falling face-first into feces. Amazingly, she managed to save her phone, which she then used to dial 911.
Two fire crews helped pull the woman out of the pit. They washed her down and gave her a Tyvek suit to wear, and the woman went on her merry way.
Despite making for an amusing story for the wider world, falling into a pit toilet is no laughing matter. Not only is it absolutely disgusting—it's dangerous. Even if you aren't injured in the fall itself, human feces isn't exactly a healthy thing to splash around in. The fumes and toxic gases alone are enough to overcome someone, especially in a small, enclosed space.
Long story short, keep your valuables out of the public pit toilets. And if they do somehow fall in, don't go in after them.
"If the winning Lotto ticket was down there I'd still count it as a loss and move on," Lieutenant Carroll said. "The only thing worth saving from there is your child. Anything else is a 'no.'"
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