Comment by prawn
9 years ago
Another case involving pig shit.
"The lagoons themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In 1992, when a worker making repairs to a lagoon in Minnesota began to choke to death on the fumes, another worker dived in after him, and they died the same death. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker's cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker's older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker's father dived in. They all died in pig shit."
Tough way to go.
From this excellent, long-form piece on Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/boss-hog-the-dark-s...
Ok this is going to sound silly, and I apologize if this isn't a nice contribution.
But I believe to have read quite a while back that H2S is why poop stinks so bad for us. It can lead to anoxic events: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin...
So evolutionary speaking we might have adjusted our olfactory sense to stay clear of any H2S sources.