The Exploding Toilet of North, South Carolina

FLUSH, KABOOM! IN SOUTH CAROLINA

The terror that strikes from below – an exploding toilet bowl – is sowing fear and fecal water all over the small, confusingly named town of North, South Carolina. The Improvised Bathroom Device lashed at the civic heart of North itself, going off in the men's bathroom inside Town Hall, reports the Times and Democrat. The stall's occupant had fortunately stepped away seconds before the eruption, which blew a third of the tank to smithereens and lodged porcelain shrapnel in a door. The culprit was a toilet engineered for heavy public use that employs a high-pressure valve and less water than normal.

Detonating toilets have become a recent scourge in the American bathroom scene. Although the brand of North's rogue crapper is unknown, earlier this summer Flushmate issued a massive voluntary recall of pressurized toilets after about 300 people complained of explosions. One poor victim of such a buttock-shaking barrage said that "I required dozens of stitches for an extremely deep wound," although being "a bigger person, I was able to absorb the brunt of the force." Below is the picture of his demolished bathroom.

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