A YouTube prankster who required more than an hour of help from firefighters after cementing his head inside a microwave has said he “doesn’t care” about the criticism, but has offered to pay emergency services for their time.
On Friday, West Midlands fire service said they would not charge 22-year-old Jay Swingler the £650 service fee for the callout as his life was in danger, but the prankster has since offered to make a voluntary contribution.
Hundreds of people have taken to social media to criticise the vlogger for wasting the time and resources of the emergency services, calling him “stupid” and “immature”.
Speaking to BBC News about the incident, the prankster said: “The idea behind this video was to create this reaction. And, mission success, man. There is no such thing as bad publicity in my opinion.”
The video of Swingler cementing his head inside the microwave has been viewed more than 1m times and has attracted more than 14,000 comments on the platform.
Despite having gone viral, the recording has been demonetised by YouTube, meaning Swingler will not earn any direct revenue from it.
Fire service station commander Simon Woodward said: “We pride ourselves on our five minutes’ attendance standard. That means that if we have an instant where there’s life at risk, our appliances will be there within five minutes, and that gives us our best chance to save that life.
“If we are attending incidents that are YouTube videos where we have people who have been irresponsible … the service charge for that would be £650. We are not going to charge because his life was in danger. What I’d like to do is remind everybody not to put their lives at risk for the sake of other people’s entertainment.”
Swingler has not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.
