Recently came across your 1/3/92 response to a question of someone getting their intestines stuck / sucked out by a vacuum flush toilet. Your response was enjoyed but you were unable to verify if anything like this ever actually happened. I came across a similar story which may be more easily verified.
In the early 80’s, I recall seeing an article in a diving magazine which cronicled an accident within a recompresson chamber used to support commercial saturation diving. These chambers are used to allow divers to remain at the same pressure as that at the depth they were diving so they can sleep and eat betwen working excursions in the water. They may spend a week or more under pressure and decompress to surface pressure at the end of the week. This saves having to spend 6 or more hours decompressing following each dive. The pressure within the chamber is frequently that equal to 330 feet of seawater or 147 pounds per square inch.
Toilet flushing is accomplished by opening a valve which “vents” the toilet bowl to atmospheric pressure. As the story went, a diver opened this valve while seated and was pulled downward by the pressure differential, breaking the toilet and having part of his intestines sucked into the pipe. This story was reported at the time as making medical history as it was the first time a major surgical procedure was successfully performed in a chamber under pressure. Were he quickly removed from the chamber for the operation, he would have died from decompression sickness, also known as “the Bends”.
This story makes an interesting one in itself and may help validate the occurrance of such “barotrauma” associated with pressure differences which occur while on the toilet.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Guy, glad to have you with us.
When you start a new thread, it’s helpful if you provide a link to the column you’re discussing. You gave the date and title, which is a help, but the link makes it easier to find the column without searching, so we’re all on the same page. In this case Did a vacuum-flush commode once suck a woman’s insides out?
No biggie, you’ll know for next time. Again, welcome.