NEW YORK: A New York man was seriously injured when a toilet exploded in his face after he pulled the handle to test the water pressure in his Brooklyn apartment.

Michel Pierre sustained shrapnel wounds from flying shards of porcelain that pierced his face, arms and legs, and required 30 stitches, his lawyer told AFP.

The 58-year-old information technology specialist is now so fearful that he uses a rope to flush the toilet from behind the bathroom door at a safe distance.

“Those fears are part of his damages,” said his lawyer Sanford Rubenstein. “Clearly toilets are supposed to flush, not explode.”

Three other tenants were also injured by what the Daily News website dubbed “the porcelain bomb.”

The website said Pierre was briefly knocked unconscious and covered in blood by the explosion on October 2 in Brooklyn, an increasingly well-heeled part of New York.