Urinal Kills Man in Mystery Incident in Posh London Quarter

A man has perished in an incident described as a “tragedy,” as well as a mystery, after he was crushed by an innovative public urinal in London’s West End. This is a fashionable district in the central part of the UK capital.

Worker Ended Up Beneath Hydraulic Urinal

The tragic incident occurred at a “telescopic urinal” – a type of “pop-up toilet” in London. It remains underground during the day but, in the evening, gets raised up hydraulically so people can use it at night.

The idea of the high-tech innovative public urinals is to prevent “peeing in the street.”

The telescopic urinal concept, however, does not seem to be working smoothly. The man’s death has caused the Westminster City Council authorities to shut down the questionable facility, as well as a second pop-up toilet down the road for safety reasons, LBC reported.

According to the report, the “horrific incident” occurred in broad daylight, at about 1:10 pm local time, on Friday. A worker was performing maintenance on a telescopic urinal at the junction of Charing Cross road and Shaftesbury Avenue.

The location is outside London’s Palace Theater, which was showing a Harry Potter play, “Harry Potter and [the] Cursed Child.”

Emergency medics, the police, and firefighters were called to the site of the telescopic urinal with reports that a man had been seriously injured. A later announcement by the local authorities revealed the man died of his wounds.

A spokesman of Scotland Yard, the British police, said the injured person had to be pronounced dead in spite of the best efforts of the emergency medics.

The London Metropolitan police announced the worker suffered crush injuries while he was carrying out maintenance on the pop-up toilet.

Massive Rescue Efforts to No Avail

According to the London Fire Brigade, the man somehow got trapped “underneath” the urinal, below the street level.

The fire brigade dispatched 25 firefighters and four fire trucks after it got reports that a man had been “trapped.” The unfortunate incident caused all roads in the area to be closed for hours.

A spokesman of the London Ambulance Service said the LAS sent several of its available resources to the scene – including a medic, paramedics, a tactical response unit, a hazardous area response team, and London’s Air Ambulance – but to no avail.

The Air Ambulance was noticed landing at the nearby Trafalgar Square. Eventually, the fatal telescopic urinal had to be lifted with a crane as the rescuers worked to recover the man’s body.

Reports say it remains a sheer mystery as to how the man who got crushed ended up underneath the telescopic urinal.

The Westminster City Council introduced “hydraulic, pop-up urinals” some 20 years ago to try to stop “street urination” at night time.  

This article appeared in The State Today and has been published here with permission.

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