“The toilets at the Santa Clara University are flowing freely this graduation week, but that was not the case for the entire spring semester,” NBC11.com reports. “A pink iPod mini, just four inches long, caused a huge headache for maintenance workers at the Santa Clara University for the last few months. A female student accidentally dropped the iPod in the toilet… at the College of Arts and Sciences building.”
“It got stuck in a way that maintenance crews could not get it out. They told NBC11 News they first tried to break the iPod into pieces, but that failed. One maintenance worker called the device ‘indestructible.’ An independent contractor was called in to deal with the problem. He was able to get the iPod to move 20 feet, but then it became stuck again underneath the office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences. In order to get the iPod out from under that building, crews simultaneously flushed as many toilets as they could and they turned on every sink. That caused a water surge which pushed the iPod into a larger more accessible pipe. Next, a water company was hired to blast water into the pipe in yet another attempt to get the iPod out of the pipe. That effort worked, but at the same time, the blast of water along with a build-up of air caused geysers to burst from the second floor toilets. Crews were finally able to retrieve the iPod from a nearby sewage disposal point outside of the building by using a piece of rebar.”
Full article, complete with a slideshow of the toilet where it all happened and the clogged pipes below, plus a video report (you’ll need Flip4Mac WMV (PowerPC – Intel (beta) .dmg – note: will start downloading immediately), here.
MacDailyNews Take: No word on what we all want to know: did it still work? We’d guess “no,” as spending months, or any amount of time, underwater aren’t good for most electronics. According to the full article, It cost the university $1,000 a week to fix this problem, which seems rather high to us. Anyway, it took months to clear the iPod mini from the plumbing and the female student – who came forward voluntarily – will not be fined. Maybe this thing should come with a seat-belt for the iPod?
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Related article:
The full poop on Atech’s toilet paper holder with dock for Apple iPod – June 14, 2006
Maybe that’ll be the next iteration of the iPod: The iPod poopi – completely disposable, when the battery runs out, just flush it down the toilet. That’d keep the tree-huggers happy!
So, why did she flush it?