The following rundown of the top 10 bizarre incidents of untimely diarrhea is not for the faint‑hearted. If your stomach is already on edge, you might want to grab a snack before you read on. Yet the brave souls featured here have endured far worse than a simple bathroom emergency.
Why These Top 10 Bizarre Stories Matter
10 Kim Jong Un’s Upgraded Menu
In 2016 a monstrous typhoon named Lionrock hammered North Korea’s Hamgyong Province, wiping out the bulk of the nation’s harvests. When officials trekked into the devastated area, they reported that the border‑guard troops were surviving on a meager diet that left them hungry and demoralized.
In response, the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, decreed that the soldiers should receive a “upgraded” ration so they would no longer envy the well‑fed Chinese. The new menu was meant to boost morale, but the execution went horribly awry.
The freshly‑prepared meals turned out to be contaminated. Reports described a Japanese sandfish with a “weird smell,” and, more disturbingly, iron powder and stray training‑camp threads had somehow been mixed into the food supply.
Consequently, the already‑undernourished troops were struck by violent bouts of diarrhea, adding a fresh layer of misery to their lives and prompting a surge in emergency underwear production for the beleaguered soldiers.
9 The Moment The Music Died
A supposedly joyous three‑day field trip in the summer of 2016 turned into a pungent nightmare for a group of 68 eighth‑graders from Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, New York. On the second night of their excursion, the class was dining aboard a boat on the Potomac River, dancing and laughing under the night sky.
At around 9:00 PM, the celebration came to a sudden, wet halt as dozens of students began to lose control of their bowels. The music stopped, the dance moves froze, and the boat’s deck was suddenly awash with chaos.
Students quickly turned to social media to document the ordeal, posting pictures and updates well into the early morning. Health officials later traced the outbreak to a severe case of food poisoning, which left 22 of the teens with stained shorts and forced ten of them into the hospital for dehydration treatment.
8 War Etiquette
During the American Civil War, an unwritten rule of chivalry forbade soldiers from firing on a comrade who was “attending to the imperative calls of nature.” Modern combat offers no such courtesy, prompting many service members to pre‑emptively take Imodium or antibiotics before deployment.
Recent data reveal that roughly 32 % of U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered from diarrhea while on the battlefield, a figure that doubles for Special Operations forces. Even in the 19th century, disease claimed more lives than bullets: about 95,000 Civil War soldiers died from diarrheal illnesses.
The Mexican‑American War of 1848 saw U.S. soldiers succumbing to gastrointestinal disease at a rate seven times higher than battlefield injuries. Despite advances in medical care, intestinal ailments continue to jeopardize mission success.
One dramatic example occurred during a flight over Taliban‑controlled Afghanistan. The sole crew member capable of operating the aircraft’s defensive systems found himself glued to the toilet seat. A faulty seal caused the lavatory to overflow, spewing a “blue‑brown precipitation” into the cabin and severely hampering the navigator’s ability to focus on his duties.
7 Trapped In The Sky
Long‑haul flights are rarely pleasant, but in 2015 a British Airways service to Dubai turned into a moving nightmare when a passenger’s over‑use of the lavatory released a noxious stench that quickly filled the cabin. The captain elected to turn the aircraft around and return to London, sparing the remaining passengers a full‑flight fiasco.
Two years earlier, a Qantas flight from Chile to Australia faced a far grimmer scenario. Mid‑flight, 26 passengers were struck by explosive diarrhea, igniting a frantic scramble for the plane’s eight tiny toilets.
Upon landing in Sydney, health officials quarantined the afflicted travelers, and 16 were rushed to hospital on stretchers. The outbreak was linked to a tour group infected with norovirus, an extremely contagious stomach bug. The aircraft required a thorough decontamination, and Qantas warned remaining passengers to monitor their health closely.
6 Vandalism Or Incontinence?
In 2013, Ronald Strong, a 50‑year‑old from Maine, appealed a one‑week jail sentence after being convicted of creating a hazardous condition and willfully damaging federal property. The incident involved a courthouse bathroom that had been drenched in feces, with roughly 75 % of the floor coated in waste and the mess extending nearly two feet up the walls.
Strong insisted that the episode was an unintended side effect of medication prescribed for a heart condition. Nevertheless, the court focused on the sheer scale of the contamination, which suggested a deliberate act rather than an accidental slip.
During the hearing, Strong offered a bizarre analogy: “I don’t know if you’ve ever spilled spaghetti sauce and there’s meat, you’re trying to get it up as quick as you can.” The judges ultimately upheld the original ruling, concluding that the extensive damage indicated intentional vandalism.
5 A Dream Vacation
What should have been a sun‑kissed cruise turned into a nightmarish saga aboard the Carnival Triumph in 2013. An engine fire left the 4,200‑passenger vessel adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, depriving guests of power, food, water, and functional toilets.
Passengers endured days of darkness, with hallways slick with a mixture of water, feces, and urine. One plaintiff testified that the experience inflicted severe psychological trauma, describing the ship as a “floating turd” where every step felt like slipping on a sludge‑filled runway.
To make matters worse, the limited number of operational toilets forced travelers to resort to makeshift solutions, turning a romantic getaway into a desperate search for any semblance of dignity.
Eventually, after days of limbo, the crippled ship docked, leaving its survivors with scarred memories and a newfound appreciation for a functioning bathroom.
4 The White House
Mid‑19th‑century historians suspect that the White House’s water supply became tainted by a nearby depository that collected human waste from cesspools and outhouses. This contamination is believed to have contributed to the sudden deaths of three presidents: William Henry Harrison (1841), James K. Polk (1849), and Zachary Taylor (1850).
All three men reportedly suffered from relentless, “explosive” bouts of diarrhea while residing in the Executive Mansion, to the point where they were frequently immobilized. Contemporary accounts attribute their suffering to gastroenteritis, likely stemming from the polluted water source.
Further evidence suggests that Thomas Jefferson also fell victim to the same foul water after moving into the White House, enduring chronic diarrhea that left him dehydrated and bedridden until his death in 1826.
3 Norway’s Poop Scoundrel
Although not a classic diarrhea case, the bizarre saga of Norway’s long‑standing “poop scoundrel” demands attention. For more than a decade, an unidentified individual has been defecating in the holes of a local golf course, leaving the groundskeeper, Kenneth Tennfjord, perpetually on clean‑up duty.
The offender appears to follow a strict routine: he only strikes on weekdays, favors a couple of specific holes, and has left tire tracks suggesting he rides a bicycle. Moreover, investigators believe the culprit is male, noting that the size of the deposits far exceeds what a woman could produce.
Attempts to capture him have failed. Even after floodlights were installed on the course, the miscreant dismantled them, preserving his privacy for further “business.” To this day, the mystery remains unsolved, and the golf course continues to endure his clandestine contributions.
2 Arius
In fourth‑century Alexandria, Libya‑born priest Arius sparked a theological firestorm by arguing that while Jesus was divine, He was not co‑equal with God. This heretical stance made Arius wildly popular among the masses, but it earned him the fierce enmity of the city’s bishop, Alexander.
Bishop Alexander condemned Arius as a heretic and ultimately exiled him. Legends claim that Arius met a gruesome end on his way to a meeting with the bishop and the emperor, succumbing to a divinely‑inflicted intestinal catastrophe.
Medieval chroniclers describe his death as more than a simple bout of diarrhea. According to their accounts, Arius violently expelled both waste and his own intestines from his mouth and anus, a horrifying scene that served as divine retribution for his blasphemy.
The graphic description of his demise, allegedly occurring in a public latrine, cemented his legacy as a cautionary figure in ecclesiastical history.
1 A True ‘Scumbag’
Perhaps his childhood lacked affection, or maybe he simply revels in chaos. Either way, 42‑year‑old Ekwan Hill found himself facing Manhattan’s Special Victims Unit after assaulting two women in a disturbingly intimate fashion.
The saga began in 2016 when Hill hurled his own feces at a 33‑year‑old woman, striking her face and torso. Hours later, he stalked another woman, slipping his waste into her pants before groping her buttocks.
Grossed out yet? It only gets stranger. After flinging the leftover excrement at a witness, Hill fled on foot, only to be apprehended at a Brooklyn homeless shelter for the mentally ill.
When questioned, Hill claimed “God did it,” later describing his act as “a Farrakhan thing.” Fellow shelter residents recalled Hill’s foul odor and his habit of spreading fecal matter across mirrors, walls, and bathroom floors, reinforcing his moniker as a true “scumbag.” He was ultimately charged with sexual abuse and assault.
Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.