14 People Who Died on the Toilet
I’ve gathered my most trusted viziers to advise me on war strategy. Now, to hold a grand banquet above the royal cesspool…
The First Recorded Toilet Death
Duke Jing of Jin was a monarch in the 5th century BC. He fell ill and consulted a shaman who said he wouldn’t live to eat the next wheat harvest. He got sicker, but made it to harvest day, and had the shaman put to death. Just as he was about to sit down to performatively chomp some wheat, he got a tummy ache, went to the bathroom and was found dead inside the poop pit. His body was dragged out by a slave — who was then killed and buried with him, to serve him in the afterlife. This is exactly the type of dude you like to see die in a toilet.
Jaromír, Duke of Bohemia
Jaromír was dethroned by a rival, who blinded and imprisoned him in the 11th century. While in jail, an assassin was hired to hide in the privy and stab him in the guts with a spear.
Godfrey the Hunchback
Godfrey IV was Duke of Lower Lorraine in the 11th century. Two Counts who didn’t like Godfrey all that much went halfsies on an assassin, who got to know the city’s poop chutes so he could stab the right butthole at the right time.
Elagabalus
Marcus Aurelius “Elagabalus” Antoninus got a huge promotion at age 14, from head priest of the sun god to straight-up Emperor of Rome. He was extremely unpopular during his four-year reign, and it all culminated in a Praetorian Guard mutiny where they chased him into a latrine and murdered him.
Lenny Bruce
Famed comedian Leonard Alfred Schneider died of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of his home in the Hollywood Hills in 1966. At least he was posthumously pardoned of his obscenity conviction almost 40 years later.
Judy Garland
A lifetime of being treated by Hollywood execs like a lab rat finally caught up to her in 1969, when she died from a buildup of barbiturates in her blood after years of heavy consumption.
Elvis Presley
The King died in his Graceland bathroom, after a prolonged battle with constipation and addiction to pain killers.
The Philadelphia Balloon Man
A guy in Philadelphia was known as Balloon Man in the late 19th century, because of his startling combination of a normal body and a huge, bulbous torso. He died in 1892 at age 29, after his eight-foot-long colon became too compacted for him to pass anything. As Philadelphians are wont to do, they put his colon in the Mütter Museum.
George II of Britain
King George died in 1760 at the age of 76, the oldest a king had lived at that time. His physician said he “appeared to have just come from his necessary-stool” and was moving toward his desk, perhaps to write a diary entry about his calamitous dooky, when he collapsed.
Twenty-Three People on a Plane
In 1983, the pilots of Air Canada Flight 797 had to execute an emergency landing after a fire started in the bathroom. Half of the 46 passengers died in the crash.
A Virginia Inmate
An inmate convicted of a brutal murder was sentenced to death by electrocution, but had his sentence reduced to life in prison. In 1989, he was sitting on his metal toilet and trying to fix his TV, and electrocuted himself when he bit into earphone wires.
A Pennsylvania Inmate
In 1997, another convicted murderer also died while listening to headphones and sitting on his metal toilet.
The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
In 1884, Henry VI called together a little braintrust to discuss strategy on a war campaign against the Polish. The wooden structure they were hanging out on collapsed, sending everyone tumbling into the cesspool below. Henry himself happened to be seated safely on a stone structure, and had to watch as about 60 nobles drowned in poop in front of him.
This Guy Was Saved by Toilets!
In 2009, a Cessna 182 experienced engine failure 150 feet in the air. The 67-year-old pilot aimed for a bunch of porta-potties in storage which “kind of cushioned things,” and he was able to walk away unscathed.
