Firefighters ‘Seriously Unimpressed’ After Spending Hour Freeing Man Who ‘Cemented’ His Head in Microwave

A U.K.-based fire service has said it is “seriously unimpressed” with a 22-year-old man after five firefighters spent an hour freeing his head from a microwave oven he had “cemented” himself inside as part of a stunt he was filming for YouTube.

The man, based in the English city of Wolverhampton, had mixed quick-dry spackling paste and poured it around his head, which was protected by plastic bag inside the microwave, which was intended to act as a mold, according to West Midlands Fire. However, the prankster soon became trapped and after 90 minutes of unsuccessful help from friends, the fire brigade was called in.

After an hour, the fire firefighters managed to rescue the man, who was breathing with the help of an air tube his friends had managed to feed through the appliance, officials said.

“As funny as this sounds, this young man could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured,” said Watch Commander Shaun Dakin in a statement. “Taking the microwave apart was tricky, because a lot of it was welded. We video-called our technical rescue colleagues for advice and eventually managed to get him unstuck.”

Dakin added: “He was very relieved when we removed a large chunk of the Polyfilla with a screwdriver, allowing him to breathe more easily. But we had to be extremely careful with the screwdriver, working so closely to his head. It took us nearly an hour to free him. All of the group involved were very apologetic, but this was clearly a call-out which might have prevented us from helping someone else in genuine, accidental need.”

The man has since been identified as YouTube personality Jay Swingler and the stunt was part of the TGFbro channel’s ‘extreme Christmas calendar,’ in which Swingler and his friend set each other challenges in the countdown to December 25. A past challenge includes the pair ‘burying’ themselves in expanding foam.

A video posted on the TGFbro channel on Dec. 7, with the catchy title of ‘I cemented my head in a microwave and emergency services came.. (nearly died)‘, shows the incident from the YouTubers’ perspective.