Posted on 02/09/2025 2:37:53 PM PST by BenLurkin
The family of a man who was crushed to death in a freak accident fear they may never find out what caused the pop-up urinal he was working on to drop suddenly.
Maintenance engineer Kevin Holding, 60, was killed when working in Soho on 27 January 2023. His inquest heard it took two hours for a crane to arrive to lift the urinal off him.
Pop-up loos were introduced in central London in 2002 to discourage street urination. During the day, they are stored below the pavement and at night they rise hydraulically.
Mr Holding, from Beckenham in south-east London, became trapped underneath the telescopic urinal, which dropped on him while he was working on the device, his inquest was told.
The work he was doing was being carried out on behalf of Westminster City Council, which expressed "its deepest sympathies for Kevin Holding's family and friends".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
They couldn’t design it like an elevator, to stop if it dropped a few inches?
So, at night, you resort to street urination?
As we said in college a long time ago, “that’s a pisser.”
He had an “Oh shit!” moment
Solved...
Gives new meaning to the British term “take the piss”.
I really had to laugh at a beer festival I attended in Brussels. They had a four sided (four guys could piss at the same time) totally open, setting directly under the street light in the middle of the intersection.
A work related death so bizarre, so unclean, that the family may have considered using a simple made up story to explain it. “The ceiling collapsed on him inside of a building where he was making repairs. That’s all I know.”
I’m sure a simple sleeve around the hydraulic actuator would have saved him.
Do they accommodate women for this procedure?
What if they have a need for number 2? What then?
Maybe he felt a bit flushed?
His inquest heard it took two hours for a crane to arrive to lift the urinal off him.
I suspect he was dead the moment the loo dropped on him, so why would it matter how long it would take for the crane to arrive.
They report this like it is expected cranes are sitting around like fire trucks waiting to respond to emergencies. The question I have is were they looking for a method that would not damage the loo?
where will you
meet your water loo
> During the day, they are stored below the pavement and at night they rise hydraulically.
What’s the mystery? Obviously, he died from a tragic, crushing case of erectile dysfunction.
Exactly.
‘If you want a solution to wild peeing, cities try to create ownership and a feeling that someone is watching you,’ he said. ‘That works, but the need for peeing stays. We came up with the idea of a planter to help green the city, have something that looks nicer, but is also a urinal. It’s also circular as we make fertilizer from the urine and also green water.’
Four models were temporarily placed in and around the Rembrandtsplein last year, and an independent study suggested that in one street, the Schapensteeg, public urination decreased by 49%.
‘A study showed that GreenPees don’t create smell problems, and we will monitor whether that continues to be the case,’ said Amsterdam city in a press release. ‘The new GreenPees have also been further developed…and improved in terms of sustainability, user privacy, recognition and discoverability.’
Might want to find the explanation so it doesn’t happen again.
My bet is that the worker skipped a safety step. Like a lockout or a mechanical stop that should have been in place before venturing underneath the pisser.
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