Couple feels flush after porta-potty scare

Talk about a crappy situation.

Two Winnipeg seniors were driving on the Trans-Canada Highway Monday afternoon when they collided with an unlikely projectile: a porta-potty.

Ed and Helen Toews were driving to their cottage in Sioux Narrows from Kenora, Ont., when a portable toilet came loose from the bed of a passing truck and launched into their car.

Ed Toews, 87, was sitting in the passenger seat when a flash of green came into his line of sight.

“It was there in front of us, and then there was this big boom. I’ve never heard something like it,” Toews said Tuesday. “All the air bags went off, there was dust everywhere.”

The toilet hit the Ford Escape’s bumper before smashing into the passenger side of the vehicle as Helen Toews was driving 90 km/h — the limit on that stretch of the highway. After the car screeched to a halt, Toews scrambled out of his seat to help pry the door open for his 80-year-old wife.

The driver of the truck apologized profusely and said the situation may have been caused by new straps he used to secure the portable toilets.

Cars and trucks lined up on the road while pieces of the porta-potty were cleaned up from the highway. The toilet seat landed in the middle of the road, but the majority of the self-contained restroom landed in the ditch.

The pair ended up getting a lift back to Kenora, located about 200 kilometres east of Winnipeg. While they were driving, Helen began to laugh.

“I’m going, ‘What are you laughing about?’ said Toews. “She said, ‘I’m just thinking of what to write to my friends. You know, it’s a s——y story,’”

Luckily, the Toews only sustained minor injuries. Helen has some bruising from the seatbelt’s impact, and the pair are stiff, but they will live to tell the tale.

Even luckier, the porta-potty that hit their car was empty.

“We can laugh about it because we’re OK. If it happened any different it would have been a very different headline,” Toews said.

For now, the couple are recovering at their cottage in Lake of the Woods. They submitted a claim to Manitoba Public Insurance, but the car is likely a writeoff, Toews said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca