A woman spent three hours in a pit full of human excrement and nappies after the floor of a roadside toilet suddenly gave way in Australia’s Northern Territory outback
A mum endured three hours stuck waist-deep in human poo after an outdoor toilet suddenly collapsed.
The stomach-churning incident unfolded at the Henbury Meteorites Conservation Zone, a remote nature reserve in Australia’s Northern Territory. She had stopped off at the roadside lavatory with on her way back from visiting relatives with her husband and two children when the floor – said to be weakened by rust – gave way.
The woman, who has not been named, fell into a latrine filled with human waste. There was no mobile phone coverage in the area, so the dad and children had to drive to the nearest town to seek help.
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One eyewitness told local news outlet NT News that the husband went back to the scene with a tradesman, who threw a rope into the pit and pulled her out with his car. The process of extracting her from the ‘drop toilet’ took around 45 minutes, they said, with the mum surrounded by “literal nappies”, faeces and urine.
She was eventually taken to hospital, but was not found to have suffered any serious injuries. An area of the conservation zone has since been cordoned off as local authorities investigate the cause of the structural failure.
The state health and safety regulator, NT WorkSafe, has launched a separate “dangerous incident” probe under workplace safety laws. A statement said: “NT WorkSafe has been notified of an incident where a tourist fell into a sewage pit at the Henbury Meteorites Conservation Zone.
“The notification was made by the agency with management of the conservation zone, as a collapse or partial collapse of a structure, which is a dangerous incident under the work health and safety laws.”
Local blogging site Action for Alice wrote “this won’t feature in tourism brochures”, adding: “Somebody’s in a lot of s*** for this one.” Local community groups slammed the incident as symbolic of “decaying infrastructure” in the region.
It isn’t the first incident in Australia involving ‘drop toilets’, which are not connected to sewers and are common in more remote areas. In July 2024, a man was rescued in Indigo Valley near Wodonga, Victoria, after getting stuck in a drop toilet, which rescuers were forced to dismantle in their efforts to get him out. After half an hour, he was pulled from the pit and transferred to hospital.
