In The Sh*t

Peoples attachment to their smart phones is well known .... 

Oh Shit!

 .... its a feature of the modern worlds telecommunication revolution, that smart phones have become the gateway to the world, friends, jobs, banking and for many, its the only gateway they own (the third world has largely by-passed home PC's and Laptops which are more expensive or weighty, and uses smart-phones and or tablets).

So when people lose their phone it can be a disaster, even in the wealthiest countries such as the USA, although judging from the fact that in 2021, Transport for London' reported the finding of 22,600 phones, only half of which were reclaimed, the first world can be rather blasé about phones being lost.

But that attitude was not one shared by one American tourist at the Olympic National Forest in Washington state. In April 2022 while she was trekking in the forest on the Mount Walker hiking trail, she accidentally dropped her phone into a pit toilet (aka a long drop toilet). Now some of us may have hesitated at this point, but she was made of sterner stuff, so she tried to retrieve it by leaning down, when that fell somewhat short, she dismantled the toilet seat and tried again, even using her dogs lead to try and fish it out ..... but failed.

Even now, we might have expected that she would stop .... but no, she decided to use the dog lead to abseil down the side of the pit toilet, to where her phone was lying. But then was when the almost inevitable accident occurred .... the dog lead broke, and she fell eight feet, head first in to human waste ordure.

However, on the bright side she was then able after 20 minutes searching through the waste to retrieve her precious phone .... which thankfully was still working, so she was able to call the park rangers for help, as she was now stuck in the pit toilet.

When help arrived in the form of the Brinnon Fire Department, they had to build a platform over the pit in order to safely winch her out of the pit .... needless to say, she was covered from head to toe in excrement. They hosed her clothing and body down to remove the visible excreta and gave her some clean overalls to wear in their place. She then refused any further help and proceeded on her way with her precious phone now safely in an overall pocket.

The Brinnon Fire department wrote on Facebook that.“The patient was strongly encouraged to seek medical attention after being exposed to human waste, but she only wanted to leave. The patient was extremely fortunate not to be overcome by toxic gasses or sustain injury.”

She was not named in the reports but apparently was on her way to California .....

Similarly, in September 2023 a similarly unnamed Michigan woman lowered herself inside a pit toilet  at the department of natural resources boat launch, on Dixon Lake in Otsego county’s Bagley Township, Michigan, about 240 miles (386km) north-west of Detroit, after dropping her Apple Watch inside the toilet state police reported.

As in the previous case, the first responders were called, when the woman was heard yelling for help. The toilet casing was removed, and a strap was used to haul the woman out. “She was in the muck, if you will,” said a Michigan state police spokesman,

As in the earlier case the woman had spent time retrieving her Apple Watch first, before calling for rescue. She was not injured and, reportedly grateful to the first responders. Although an Apple watch can cost a few hundred dollars, the police warned that “If you lose an item in an outhouse toilet, do not attempt to venture inside the containment area. Serious injury may occur,” state police said in a release.

And to back up the US police warnings, in a story from June 2014, a man and a woman were not so lucky as the women in the USA. A man and his mother  suffocated to death after trying to fish a mobile phone out of an open pit toilet and falling in. The unnamed woman in Xinxiang City, China, dropped her phone, worth about $320, into the open pit toilet. 

Her husband tried to find it but was overcome by the stench, and fumes and lost consciousness and then fell in. His mother then dove in after her son, but she also fainted. When neighbours were called for help after the owner of the phone then tried to save her husband and mother-in-law but also lost consciousness.

So frankly, it doesn't look worth the risk .... and ladies (all the reports were after ladies dropped their phones down toilets), its only a phone.