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Line of portable toilets
Most people don’t want to spend more time than absolutely necessary inside a portable toilet. However, one man in Kansas City endured an eight-hour ordeal after falling into the depths of one over an ill-advised attempt to retrieve a bottle of Mountain Dew.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a little more than a century since indoor plumbing became a widespread feature of homes in the United States. That was a game-changing development for a number of reasons, including the impact it had on how Americans went to the bathroom.
If you want to get a taste of how most people did their business before porcelain toilets became the norm, all you need to do is step inside one of the glorified outhouses commonly referred to as a porta-potty. They tend to be anything but glamorous, and they are usually designed in a way where you get a view of the, um, offerings left by people who used them before you.
It’s also pretty easy to drop something into the pungent abyss below, and most people will write off anything that falls in there as a loss. However, there are some brave souls who insist on trying to reclaim their property, including one man who recently learned why that can be a very bad idea.
Firefighters used a saw to free a man who was stuck in the bowels of a porta-potty in Kansas City for eight hours
Kansas City was one of the cities that was tapped to host games during the 2026 World Cup, and fans who didn’t get the opportunity to attend games in person have the chance to attend watch parties that were held around the area.
Those gatherings have attracted large crowds that have necessitated the temporary installation of portable toilets, and according to Fox4, one company that supplied them encountered an unexpected issue when they went to pick them up on Tuesday morning in the wake of the quarterfinals.
The company in question was Patriot Portable Restrooms, and partner Chip Counterman recently hopped online to recount the saga that unfolded when an employee who was dispatched to retrieve the porta-potties encountered a man who was locked inside one and said he was unable to get out.
@patriotportablerestrooms Since you’ve all been asking… here’s what actually happened. #fyp
The employee flagged down a police officer who subsequently encountered the guy who was stuck inside the lower basin of the toilet, who said he’d fallen inside the previous night after trying to grab a bottle of Mountain Dew he’d dropped.
The Kansas City Fire Department was eventually called, and video captured them using a saw to extract him before hosing him down after he was finally freed.
STUCK WHERE?!?!? Firefighters in Kansas City were forced to cut apart a portable toilet after a man somehow became trapped beneath the seat in a strange rescue. https://t.co/7deBVUY1QP
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 15, 2026
A similar situation unfolded at a campground in California last month, but a man who got stuck in a toilet after trying to grab his sunglasses was thankfully rescued around 15 minutes after his ordeal began.