Adam Fink, the owner of Laird Sanitation LLC (“Got Poop?”) in Greybull, says trying to retrieve anything that's fallen into an outhouse, portable toilet, or vault toilet isn't worth the risk and effort.
That includes sunglasses, which is what a man in central California was trying to recover when he fell into a vault toilet and had to be rescued from its fetid depths last week.
“Aside from a family heirloom or a wedding ring, it’s not worth digging through a pile of waste to recover something that’s fallen into a vault toilet,” Fink told Cowboy State Daily. "Even then, you should call someone, not try to get it yourself."
The incident occurred June 20 at Camp Edison on the Sierra National Forest, northeast of Fresno.
According to media reports, the unidentified man trying to recover his sunglasses was stuck inside for about 15 minutes before being rescued.
Fink typically doesn’t deal with vault toilets in Wyoming’s state and national parks, but he knows what horrors can lurk at their depths. This man was lucky he wasn’t down there deeper or longer, he said.
“A vault toilet can be anywhere from three to 10 feet deep,” he said. “If you jump in, you may not be touching bottom. It's not worth the risk."
Disturbing Depths
For the unfamiliar, vault toilets are non-flush toilets in which human waste is deposited into a large underground tank. Because no water is used, the waste sits until it’s pumped out and transported to a treatment facility.
Vault toilets are common in national parks and campgrounds where running water and sewer lines are unavailable. They can go several months or longer without being pumped.
You don’t know what diseases might be running around in there with all the human waste,” Fink said.
While vault toilets don’t use water, many are at least partially filled with the same biodegradable chemical solution Fink and others use to fill portable toilets. It helps break down everything that falls inside.
Nobody likes the idea of being partially submerged in a caustic chemical bath at the bottom of a vault toilet, but it’s preferable to everything else floating at the bottom.
Then there are the “lily pads” that give people a false sense of hope.
“Those vaults and tanks will develop a bit of a crust on top, or the toilet paper will act as a lily pad,” Fink said. “You might see something you dropped sitting right at the surface, but that doesn’t mean that’s the bottom.”
Bowels Of Hell
People lose items in portable toilets and vault toilets all the time. The lengths some will go to retrieve these lost objects can have dangerous and humiliating consequences.
In August 2022, a man was stuck in a vault toilet at Fishtrap Creek in western Montana for three hours, half-naked, after trying to recover his phone. Morgan Jacobsen, spokesperson for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, relayed the full details of the incident to VICE News.
“The man undressed, removed the toilet and climbed (into the vault) to retrieve his phone,” Jacobsen said. “He was unable to climb out and was stuck for about three hours until a few other people came along and were able to help him.”
The Good Samaritans saved the man from the bowels of Hell by lowering a camp chair into the vault, which he used as a platform to climb out.
In April 2022, a woman in Washington’s Olympic National Park was stuck in a vault toilet for more than an hour after she dove in headfirst trying to recover her phone.
That incident was enough for the Wyoming Division of Parks and Cultural Resources to release a statement discouraging visitors from doing the same.
“While rare, we have received reports from several parks over the years,” spokesperson Gary Schoene said. “First and foremost, people should contact the respective park staff if they should drop their phone in the toilet. We advise folks not to reach down or try to retrieve the phone themselves because of the potential for dangerous, noxious gases in the vault.”
The Teton Raptor Center's Porta Potty Owl Project, or "Poo-Poo Project," developed a special screen to cover the open-pipe chimney on many vault toilets to protect owls and other birds. Getting stuck in a vault toilet might be a disturbing moment and memory for people, but it's often fatal for animals.
"In our complicated times of complex problems, this is an issue for wildlife with a simple, affordable solution,” Teton Raptor Center CEO Amy McCarthy told Cowboy State Daily. “It's making a difference that has led to the safety of thousands of wild creatures, one toilet at a time.”
Not Worth It
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and Camp Edison staff
rescued the man who fell into the vault toilet within 15 minutes. CAL Fire personnel hosed him off.
“(We) were able to safely get him out, decontaminate him, and he’ll be OK,” said Sgt. Chris Tullus with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.
Fink has recovered many items that have been dropped into portable toilets.
Few, he believes, were worth the call.
“We find items of all sorts in vaults and portable toilets, but they’re usually trash,” he said.
A smartphone can cost close to $2,000 in 2026. Nobody wants to lose that much in one fell swoop, but Fink said it’s probably best to leave that phone where it dropped.
“When it comes to cellphones, there's a thing called the Cloud,” he said. “If you're not backing your information up to the Cloud, this is a good reminder that it's probably time to do that, because it’s not worth diving into a vault toilet.”
That’s assuming a phone would even work after soaking in a cocktail of human waste and chemicals. Stranger things have happened, however.
When Wyoming outdoorsman Paul Ulrich dropped his iPhone into a vault toilet, he didn’t even consider trying to recover it.
“I never wanted to see that phone again,” he told Cowboy State Daily in April 2022. “The outhouse gods could have it.
Nevertheless, when he had his son call the phone hours later, it was still working.
“You gotta credit Apple,” he said. “At the bottom of an outhouse, which probably hadn’t been emptied since the 1940s, and it was still working. God bless America.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
