List of people who have died while on the toilet explained

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Numerous individuals have died while using a toilet facility or in the process of defecation or urination. This includes confirmed or suspected historical figures as well as more recent notable cases.

Pre-20th century

data-sort-type="date"	Date	Location	Name	Age	Description	Source
data-sort-value="1 January 102"	Summer of 581 BC	Jin, China	Duke Jing of Jin	Unknown	Died falling into a toilet pit.	^[1]
8 April 217 AD	Between Edessa and Carrhae, Roman Empire	Caracalla	29	Murdered by his soldiers while stopping to urinate, on his way to Edessa	^[2]
11/12 March 222	Rome	Elagabalus	18	Murdered by the Praetorian Guard "in a latrine in which he had taken refuge".	^[3]
data-sort-value="1 January 336"	336 AD	Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire	Arius	80	Died from explosive gastrointestinal problems while in a public toilet	^[4]
30 November 1016	Oxford or London, England	King Edmund Ironside of England	26	Stabbed while defecating in a toilet.	^[5]
4 November 1035	Lysá nad Labem, Bohemia	Jaromír, Duke of Bohemia	60–70	Stabbed with a spear from under a toilet seat while defecating.	^[6]
data-sort-value="26 February 1076"	26 or 27 February 1076	Vlaardingen, Lower Lorraine	Godfrey IV, Duke of Lower Lorraine	Unknown	Was assassinated while using a toilet.	^[7]
19 April 1578	Echigo Province, Japan	Uesugi Kenshin	48	Allegedly assassinated by a ninja while using a toilet, but very unlikely because his anticipation of his own death is recorded in a death poem. Early sources record his deterioration of health condition, his complaints of pain in the chest "like an iron ball", and as Kenshin Gunki (1582) records "on the 9th day of the 3rd month he had a stomach ache in his toilet. This unfortunately persisted until the 13th day when he died". It is much more likely that he suffered from esophageal cancer.^[8]	^[9]
25 October 1760	Kensington Palace, London, England, Great Britain	George II of Great Britain	76	Collapsed shortly after attending to his close stool, possibly died of an aortic aneurysm.	^[10]
1892	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.	J.W., also known as Balloon Man	29	Suffered from congenital aganglionic megacolon, which brought him considerable fame for his bloated abdomen. He suffered from constipation, and was found dead in a bathroom at the age of 29, apparently having died trying to defecate. His eight foot long colon is currently on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.	^[11] ^[12]

20th and 21st centuries

Date	Location	Name	Age	Description	Source
3 August 1966	Los Angeles, California, United States	Lenny Bruce	40	Died from acute morphine poisoning caused by an overdose in the bathroom of his home in Hollywood Hills.	^[13] ^[14]
22 June 1969	Chelsea, London	Judy Garland	47	Overdosed on barbiturates while using a toilet.	^[15]
24 October 1971	Paris, France	George Dyer	38	Overdose of alcohol and amphetamine while using a toilet. Portrayed in The Black Triptychs
16 August 1977	Memphis, Tennessee	Elvis Presley	42	He was found dead on the bathroom floor. The cause of death was cardiac arrest due to alleged drug overdose.	^[16]
8 March 1989	Columbia, South Carolina	Michael Godwin	28	Initially sentenced to death by electrocution, but later reduced to a life sentence. He was accidentally electrocuted when he bit a pair of earphone wires while sitting on a metal toilet.	^[17]
19 January 1996	Los Angeles, California, United States	Don Simpson	52	Died of heart failure caused by combined drug intoxication in the bathroom of his home in Bel Air.	^[18] ^[19]
8 March 2004	Hollywood Hills, California, United States	Robert Pastorelli	49	Overdosed on morphine while on a toilet.	^[20]
25 June 2011	Pilton, Somerset, United Kingdom	Christopher Shale	56	Died of a heart attack on a portable toilet while at Glastonbury Festival.	^[21]
17 May 2013	Marcos Paz, Buenos Aires, Argentina	Jorge Rafael Videla	87	Died of a heart attack while on a jail toilet after slipping in the shower.	^[22]
10 October 2016	Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany	Tamme Hanken	56	Died of sudden heart failure on a hotel toilet.	^[23]
21 June 2019	Doha, Qatar	Toufiq M Seraj	63	Fell unconscious on an aeroplane toilet en route from Dhaka to Doha, pronounced dead of massive heart attack shortly after landing.	^[24]
23 November 2021	Seoul, Republic of Korea	Chun Doo-hwan	90	Having multiple myeloma, found "fallen down" by a probable heart attack in a toilet at home.	^[25]

Deaths in fiction

• Donald Gennaro (played by Martin Ferrero) is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex while sitting on the toilet of a destroyed restroom cabin in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park.^[26]
• A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones: in the book A Storm of Swords (2000) from the series written by George R. R. Martin, Tywin Lannister is killed by his son Tyrion while using the toilet.^[27]
• The Sopranos: one capo for Tony Soprano's crime family, Gigi Cestone, died on the toilet, likely due to stress caused by the new leadership role.^[28]
• Unforgiven: The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) assassinates the character Quick Mike (David Mucci) in an outhouse.
• Pulp Fiction: in the film, one of the protagonists Vincent Vega is shot by Butch Coolidge while exiting a bathroom by use of machine gun.
• South Park: in the 2012 episode "Reverse Cowgirl", Clyde's mom falls into the toilet and suffers disembowelment.^[29]
• Saturday Night Live

produced several fictional advertisements for comedic value for a device called a "Toilet Death Ejector", in which a toilet would "eject" a person off of a toilet if they died on it so they would not be found dead on the toilet.^[30]

• Edward Spratt, a fictional English artist in Return of the Obra Dinn, was strangled by the Kraken as he was using the ship's head at the bow.
• Amir Asif, the main antagonist of the 2020 action movie Extraction, is shot after entering the toilet.
• Logan Roy, a protagonist on Succession, had a heart attack on the toilet of his private jet while skipping his oldest son's wedding.
• In HITMAN (2016), the player can kill General Reza Zaydan by dropping a toilet bowl on his head. Moreover, any NPC can be killed by drowning them in a toilet.^[31]

See also

• List of unusual deaths
• Toilet-related injuries and deaths

References

Notes and References

1. Web site: ((Zuo Qiuming (translator James Legge))). Book VIII. Duke Cheng. 23 April 2012. Zuo Zhuan. University of Virginia. zh, en. Chapter X.
2. Web site: Historia Augusta • Life of Caracalla . 2022-09-05 . penelope.uchicago.edu.
3. Web site: Historia Augusta • The Life of Elagabalus . 2023-06-07 . penelope.uchicago.edu.
4. Muehlberger. Ellen. 6 May 2015. The Legend of Arius' Death: Imagination, Space and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography. Past & Present. 227. 1. 3–29. 10.1093/pastj/gtu042. free.
5. Book: Henry of Huntingdon . Historia Anglorum . History of the English People. 2002. 15.
6. Chronica Baemorum. "Kochan poslal svého kata a když onen slepec seděl na záchodě v hodině noční, vyprazdňoval břich, proklál ho ostrým oštěpem zezadu až do útrob břišních."
7. Book: Hay, David (2008), The military leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046-1115, Manchester University Press, pp. 35, 43–44.
8. Turnbull, Stephen (2012b). Ninja AD 1460–1650. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781782002567.
9. [Uesugi Kenshin#CITEREFTurnbull2012a|Turnbull 2012]
10. Thompson, pp. 289–290; Van der Kiste, p. 213.
11. Web site: Giant Megacolon . The College of Physicians of Philadelphia . 2022-09-13 . 2023-01-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230110212810/http://memento.muttermuseum.org/detail/giant-megacolon . dead .
12. Web site: Medical mystery solved: The case of the 'Balloon Man' . M3 USA Corporation.
13. Book: Collins . Ronald K. L. . The trials of Lenny Bruce : the fall and rise of an American icon . Skover . David M. . Bruce . Lenny . 2002 . Naperville, Ill. : Sourcebooks MediaFusion . Internet Archive . 978-1-57071-986-8.
14. Web site: 2001-10-15 . Lenny Bruce, Uninhibited Comic, Found Dead in Hollywood Home . . 2024-01-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20011015200417/https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1013.html . 2001-10-15 .
15. citing United Press International article "Judy Took Too Many Pills" and containing a copy of Garland's death certificate.
16. Web site: Elvis' addiction was the perfect prescription for an early death. 16 August 2018. PBS NewsHour. 13 January 2020.
17. Web site: 2018-08-27. Convicted Criminal Escaped Electric Chair, Then Electrocuted Himself in his Toilet. 2022-02-19. The Vintage News. en.
18. News: Pace . Eric . 1996-01-21 . Don Simpson Is Dead at 52; Produced Blockbuster Films . 2024-01-29 . The New York Times . en-US . 0362-4331.
19. Web site: admin . 2015-03-04 . Don Simpson (Producer) - bizarre sex life? ⋆ Historian Alan Royle . 2024-01-29 . Historian Alan Royle . en.
20. News: Actor Robert Pastorelli found dead in home. TODAY.com. 2017-10-08. en.
21. News: PM in Commons tribute to friend. BBC News. 2017-10-08. en-GB.
22. News: 5 May 2017. Videla, el represor que murió en un inodoro y que lideró a los que podrían pedir el 2x1. es. BigBang! News. 2020-01-13. 2022-07-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20220728145705/https://www.bigbangnews.com/politica/videla-el-represor-que-murio-en-un-inodoro-y-que-lidero-a-los-que-podrian-pedir-el-2x1-2017-5-7-9-0-0. dead.
23. Web site: 2016-10-11 . Tamme Hanken: Herztod auf Toilette in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . 2024-01-29 . www.merkur.de . de.
24. Web site: Staff Correspondent. 22 June 2019. Sheltech MD dies on plane. 6 August 2022. The Daily Star. en.
25. Web site: 이호승. 강수련. 23 November 2021. '끝내 사과 없이' 전두환 사망..'친구' 노태우 떠난 지 28일만(종합2보). 23 August 2022. News 1. ko.
26. Web site: 'Jurassic Park': Meet 'the guy who died on the toilet'. USA Today. 7 April 2013. Alexander. Bryan. 28 March 2020.
27. Web site: Game of Thrones Viewer's Guide. viewers-guide.hbo.com. en. 28 October 2017.
28. Web site: 2013-08-21 . He is Risen (3.08) . 2024-05-12 . Sopranos Autopsy . en.
29. Web site: South Park: "Reverse Cowgirl". The A.V. Club. 14 March 2012. McGee. Ryan. 28 March 2020.
30. Web site: SNL has disrupted elder care with this excremental innovation. Berkowitz. Joe. 2019-03-03. Fast Company. en-US. 2020-04-12.
31. Web site: Murdering Reza Zaydan Marrakesh - Hitman Game Guide . 2024-06-30 . Gamepressure.com . en.