Strange Deaths

[uair01]

Our city is full of them and I've used them occasionally, in moments of need. Never thought they could be deadly. Tragic!

 

[brownmane]

Our city is full of them and I've used them occasionally, in moments of need. Never thought they could be deadly. Tragic!

I don't think I would use one. What if it decided that it needed to return to its nest?

 

[escargot]

What the heck? I have never heard of these contraptions. Only in England you say? They pop up at night? How are they cleaned? Is Superman only able to come to someone’s rescue during nighttime hours? Oh wait, that was a telephone box. Though even those don’t exist any more.

I have lots of questions about this.

The devices were brought into use by Westminster City Council about 20 years ago in an attempt to discourage street urination.

In central Manchester open-air public urinals were installed around that time for the same reason. When I first saw them I thought they were drinking fountains and started wandering over to inspect one. My mates nearly died laughing at me.

 

[brownmane]

In central Manchester open-air public urinals were installed around that time for the same reason. When I first saw them I thought they were drinking fountains and started wandering over to inspect one. My mates nearly died laughing at me.

 

[RaM]

Others have now been taken out of service.

 

[kesavaross]

Others have now been taken out of service.

I may have this wrong. I understood the unfortunate man was servicing the urinal.

 

[RaM]

He was, other urinals of the same sort have been taken out of service

 

[Carse]

I think they have a self-cleaning mechanism.
I think they're a bad idea.

As someone with occasional 'urgency issues' I think they're a very good idea indeed.

It's a shame someone has died basically because of society's squeamishness about toilet matters (meaning the pissoir has to retract during the daylight hours)

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

He was, other urinals of the same sort have been taken out of service

A sensible precaution.
I suspect these pop-up urinals will be discontinued now, as this tragic incident will probably put most blokes off from using them. No danger of being crushed to death if you piss in some bushes or against a wall instead.

 

[brownmane]

A sensible precaution.
I suspect these pop-up urinals will be discontinued now, as this tragic incident will probably put most blokes off from using them. No danger of being crushed to death if you piss in some bushes or against a wall instead.

Nope, just being caught for indecent exposure.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Nope, just being caught for indecent exposure.

Arf! Well there is that I suppose.

Does anyone know how rapidly these urinals are withdrawn into the ground?
If it started to sink when you're in mid flow, would you have time (or presence of mind) to jump clear? Sounds like these hideously over-engineered devices are to urination what those rather disturbing Paternoster lifts are to intra-building transportation.

 

[RaM]

They don't seem to move that fast but there seems to be a access point in front
to likely get at the workings likely the poor chap was working under it, if you
were using it you could just step back if it moved and take the embarrassment
but if it can due to something failing come crashing down that could be nasty.


https://www.google.com/search?q=pop...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3665a39f,vid:C8iR3pgt37I

 

[escargot]

Nope, just being caught for indecent exposure.

An ex of mine was fined in the '70s for drunkenly 'urinating in public'. These days it might indeed be treated as a sex offence, or more likely a public order or 'outraging public decency' matter. Anything from a fixed-penalty fine to a short stretch in prison.

It's a close thing though. Ex later applied for teacher training. He had to disclose any convictions and wasn't keen on talking about that one!

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

They don't seem to move that fast but there seems to be a access point in front
to likely get at the workings likely the poor chap was working under it, if you
were using it you could just step back if it moved and take the embarrassment
but if it can due to something failing come crashing down that could be nasty.


https://www.google.com/search?q=pop...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3665a39f,vid:C8iR3pgt37I

Nope. Don't like that at all. It sinks way faster than it rises!
What an idiotic and unnecessary invention! If there were no sensors to detect a human presence either in the maintenance slot or inside the thing, this must be verging on criminal negligence.
If I were desperate enough to use it, I would stand outside its circular footprint and try to aim at the urinal from a couple of feet away (and risk censure for indecent exposure).

 

[escargot]

there seems to be a access point in front
to likely get at the workings

I'd like to see that hatch open, being a sucker for a hole in the road.

Year or two ago I very much enjoyed inspecting the pump repairs on a nearby newish bypass. The long-suffering workmen were quite sporting about the 500 questions I asked.

When the lifts at work are being maintained I'm there, Dude, enjoying the cogs and pulleys.

 

[Trevp666]

We've had public urinals, in the street, for night-time use, for decades round these parts.
They're called bushes.

 

[Cochise]

We've had public urinals, in the street, for night-time use, for decades round these parts.
They're called bushes.

One of the delights of living in the middle of nowhere is being able to have an al-fresco pee without causing a health hazard.

 

[Trevp666]

One of the delights of living in the middle of nowhere is being able to have an al-fresco pee without causing a health hazard.

One of the local pubs that we used to go to was in a residential area that was separated from where I am by a small area of parkland which had quite a few trees in it. On our route through there there was one particularly large Weeping Willow which got the nickname 'The Portaloo' due to it's hanging branches forming the perfect shield from the prying eyes of anybody who happened to be looking out of some houses within scoping distance.

 

[brownmane]

They don't seem to move that fast but there seems to be a access point in front
to likely get at the workings likely the poor chap was working under it, if you
were using it you could just step back if it moved and take the embarrassment
but if it can due to something failing come crashing down that could be nasty.

Ram, your link is only a search page. I looked and found a link explaining the infernal contraption:
https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/231844/pop-up-urinals

It also has a video that I find humorous in that, although it explains that only certain people (police, city workers, bar owners) can make it come up, and therefore conveys some responsibility onto them, there is one shot of people having a ride on top of it. That is the first thing I thought of people doing until I heard that it could be worked only by specific people. Obviously someone does not take this responsibility so seriously

Don't think I would use that one. Maybe they would also think it funny to lower the urinal when someone is using it.

 

[RaM]

Hope no one thought it funny to lower it when it was being serviced.

 

[maximus otter]

An ex of mine was fined in the '70s for drunkenly 'urinating in public'. These days it might indeed be treated as a sex offence…

…aim at the urinal from a couple of feet away (and risk censure for indecent exposure).

To be classed as “indecent exposure”, the - reveal - must be deliberate, and with the intention of causing alarm or distress:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpg...mary conviction,,term not exceeding 2 years.]

maximus otter

 

[Kondoru]

Oh, I would like to believe that.

 

[uair01]

Tragic, RIP:

Rotterdam man (19) hit by subway has died
The man who was hit by a subway near Rotterdam's Blijdorp station on Saturday morning has died of his injuries in hospital. It concerns a 19-year-old Rotterdam man.
The incident was a fatal accident, according to police. The man walked himself into the subway tube around 8 a.m. on Saturday and was then hit by a line E subway. The RET immediately removed the power from the rails so that the victim could be removed from the track by emergency workers.

https://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/door-me...L3VS-UqJ03A8&referrer=https://l.facebook.com/

 

[uair01]

Browsing the Czech newspapers. A man sent a letter with a bullet to the wife of the President and later, when the president visited his city, the man slit his wrists.

In one of Brno's most luxurious buildings and the tallest skyscraper in the Czech Republic, David S., a successful biochemist, wrapped a bullet in an envelope, wrote a threatening letter and sent it to Monika Babišová. On the very day that presidential candidate Andrej Babiš arrived in Brno with his wife Monika, and at the very moment when he was talking about how people were threatening him, David S. slit his wrists.

"He had a transplant, he was walking around with an oxygen tank under his arm. I hadn't seen him here for a long time and I found out last week that he had died. On Monday there were a lot of ambulances, firemen, policemen. They arrived at 5:30, then took the body away at 8:00. He said his wife had left him," the receptionist of one of the most modern buildings in the centre of Brno, the so-called AZ Tower, helpfully told MF DNES reporters.

Note: See the picture of the luxury apartment tower below. Looks good!
Source: https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/domaci/...da.A230202_193300_domaci_misl?zdroj=LN_banner
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

[Frideswide]

those rather disturbing Paternoster lifts

nightmares

 

[ramonmercado]

H&S notices are there for good reasons.

Attorney and gun evangelist Leandro Mathias de Novaes, 40, accompanied his mother for an MRI at Laboratorio Cura in São Paulo, Brazil. He was carrying a firearm and apparently ignored instructions to remove metal objects before entering the room with the MRI machine.

According to The Independent, the magnetic field generated by the MRI pulled the gun from de Novaes's waistband and caused it to fire. The bullet hit him in the stomach and he eventually died from the injury.

https://boingboing.net/2023/02/09/mri-machine-fires-mans-gun-at-hospital-killing-him.html

 

[Endlessly Amazed]

Arf! Well there is that I suppose.

Does anyone know how rapidly these urinals are withdrawn into the ground?
If it started to sink when you're in mid flow, would you have time (or presence of mind) to jump clear? Sounds like these hideously over-engineered devices are to urination what those rather disturbing Paternoster lifts are to intra-building transportation.

Yikes! I had to look up what paternoster lifts are. I have never seen one in real life. Or even in photos. Poorly designed from a human usage perspective. An interior ferris wheel with no safety equipment.

The collapsing urinals seem like a Lovecraftian invention. Has anyone photographed the dero workforce (to mix my metaphors) who bring them out and take them back in, sometimes with a human victim (AKA dinner) caught in the works?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Yikes! I had to look up what paternoster lifts are. I have never seen one in real life. Or even in photos. Poorly designed from a human usage perspective. An interior ferris wheel with no safety equipment.

I have only ever seen one, and that was at Sheffield Uni.

 

[Coal]

I have only ever seen one, and that was at Sheffield Uni.

There was one at the Marconi Beeston site when I went there in the early 2000's.

 

[Frideswide]

Leicester Uni had one in the 60s. And possibly still does!