It's a fake story. http://www.snopes.com/embarrass/accident/toilet.asp The keys are "the way my friend told it" and "a guy". There is nothing specific in the column. In other versions, he broke his collar bone or his arm . . . or it was oily rags in the toilet in the toilet instead of raw gas. There are a hundred versions of the "blown off the toilet" story. It's also been circulated in those "friendly" have-you-heard-this emails that all your cousins like to send you when they have nothing better to do.

It's a shame that the columnist had nothing better to write about than this tired old urban legend. That old story is on a hundred websites, and her boss should call her on the carpet for plagarism.