If you try, you can find yourself coming across a weird story or a tale of someone doing something very ill-advised every day. The internet is rich enough with them that it’s pretty hard to run out most of the time.
But it’s pretty rare for us to come across something that’s both so bizarre that we’re not sure how someone thought of it and so dumb that we can’t understand how they convinced themselves it was a good idea.
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Yet when we do, you can bet that it’s going to stick with us for years after the news cycle has moved on from it.
Back in 2017, 22-year-old British YouTuber and co-creator of the TGFBro channel Jay Swingler had the idea for an extreme prank that the channel is known for.
As the BBC reported , this involved mixing together seven bags of a plaster called Polyfilla and pouring it inside a microwave.
It’s worth noting that the microwave wasn’t plugged in and was intended to serve as a mould rather than an oven.
Swingler then put a plastic bag on his head and held a breathing tub in his mouth before sticking his head into the mixture.
As USA Today reported , one of his friends then turned a blow dryer on the plaster for 10 minutes to make it harden.
As you might imagine, this ensured that Swingler’s head would be firmly stuck in the microwave but he also found that the mixture made him unable to breathe anymore.
He can be heard saying, “I’m gonna die” in the video .
Fortunately for him, that did not come to pass and his friends were able to improve his breathing situation by making a hole in the contraption.
However, the BBC reported that they were not able to get it off his head despite trying for an hour and a half.
According to statement by Station Commander Simon Woodward from the West Midlands Fire Service, it was at this point that Swingler’s friends called an ambulance, who then asked for additional support from the fire service.
And despite the absurdity of the situation, rescuers saw plenty of reason to take the matter seriously.
As Watch Commander Shaun Dakin — one of the firefighters who responded — said, “As funny as this sounds, this young man could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured.”
And that’s not the only reason that the fire crew involved was left less than impressed by the stunt.
According to the BBC, it took them close to an hour to free Swingler and this was only made possible by taking the microwave itself apart.
As Dakin said, “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.”
