Some background: When I was a kid growing up in the late 50s-early 60s, one of the things we used to do was induce ourselves to fart by sticking the nozzle of a bicycle hand pump into our behinds and giving ourselves several pumps of air. We would then get close to another kid and open the floodgate. Although the scent wasn’t potent, the sound was still funny. After we’d done this a few times, we learned to generate different kinds of sounds, ranging from a sudden burst like a sonic boom to high-pitched sound like that of an out-of-tune trumpet.
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Now my question. I heard that some kids or maybe grown-ups got daring and instead of a hand pump used a compressed-air hose. The sudden injection of high-pressure gas at hundreds of pounds per square inch into the intestines caused rupture and internal bleeding. I heard there were documented cases of deaths from this type of dangerous entertainment. Tell me it’s not true! –Bill Sabalburo, San Juan, La Union, Philippines
A 1980 review totted up 93 cases of pneumatic intestinal rupture, but thereafter things seem to have quieted down. Possibly that’s because of rising maturity and intelligence in the workforce but more likely in my opinion because the industrial jobs affording access to air hoses were being exported overseas–the first Korean case was reported in 1996. The latest U.S. case I can find, as usual involving a practical joker, is from 2002; his victim, a Georgia carpentry shop employee, survived, but was out of work for three months and ran up medical bills totaling close to $70,000.
