Man relieved after urine icecapade

A MAN has told how he was almost killed by a frozen block of urine and water, which fell 30,000ft from an aeroplane toilet.

Thomas Delaney was taking a walk around Ballybrit racecourse in Galway early this week after finishing work when the waste was prematurely released by a plane passing overhead.

“I heard this really loud whooshing noise like a rocket and this block of ice crashed in front of me about 12 feet away. I got the fright of my life. If I’d been walking any quicker I would have been killed,” said the 20-year-old product builder.

“It was about the size of two cavity blocks. It had a strong chemical smell which I could only describe as a portaloo smell, and it dropped with such force that it left a crater in the ground,” he said.

When Mr Delaney told gardaí about the incident they contacted air traffic control in Shannon. They in turn took a statement from Mr Delaney and referred him to the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).

“I received a phone call from the IAA and they confirmed it was a block of portaloo ice which came within 12 feet of killing me. It’s supposed to land in the ocean but it is not yet known how it ended up in front of me on the Ballybrit racecourse,” he said.

When released from such a high altitude, the urine and water freezes almost immediately. The IAA is still investigating the matter and as yet does not know from which aircraft the waste was dropped.

Mr Delaney has kept a piece of the ice in his freezer at home since the incident as proof. “I was sitting at home in shock after the night’s events when I realised that I had nothing to prove that it had actually happened.

"The gardaí didn’t even leave their van to examine the scene, so I got a taxi out to the racecourse about six hours after it all happened in the pitch darkness to find what was left before it melted.

“Luckily, I found a piece about the size of a melon and brought it home with me to freeze as evidence.

“I was nearly killed.

“I want to get to the bottom of this. How often does this kind of thing go on?” he said.