Construction Worker Hit by Portable Toilet in Aventura

Comments (0) By Tim Elfrink Thursday, Jul 5 2012

Awww, you had a pretty rough day, huh? Your boss didn't notice how hard you worked on those cold calls? The copy machine kept printing sideways? Starbucks messed up your Grande Frappuccino?

Mark Poutenis

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Honestly, Carlos Torres doesn't really want to hear it. No matter how messed-up your shift was, it wasn't half as bad as the 38-year-old construction worker's day at the office this past April 3.

That's the morning a Porta-Potty full of 400 pounds of excrement fell on him. Right on his head, actually. Yeah, you lose.

Torres's nightmare day on the job started out like usual. His employer, a labor firm called South East Employee Leasing Services, sent him to a work site on Williams Island in Aventura where hundreds of workers were constructing a new luxury high-rise called the Bellini.

Just before 9:30 that morning, the Colombian-born Torres stationed himself near the shell of the condo tower to help an employee of Allegiance Crane & Equipment with a delicate task — lowering two, completely full portable toilets to the ground.

As they were being lowered, Torres gestured for the operator to stop while he moved a wheelbarrow. The "next thing the [operator] saw" was Torres lying on the ground, a Porta-Potty on its side next to him, according to a police report. Just to reiterate: Four hundred pounds of shit landed directly on this man's head.

Torres amazingly survived with a broken ankle and some head injuries. Now he wants Allegiance to pay up. He's filed a lawsuit against the company for medical expenses, pain, and suffering. (Allegiance's president, James Robertson, didn't immediately reply to two messages from Riptide seeking comment on the lawsuit.)

If anyone deserves a payout, it's the guy who got 400 pounds of poop dropped on his head.