Emergency services slam idiot pranksters after receiving 3,000 call-outs from YouTube challenges gone wrong
One incident saw fire and ambulance crews spend nearly an hour trying to free an attention-seeker who cemented his head into a microwave using Polyfilla.
ONLINE pranksters have been slammed by the emergency services after it was revealed they were called out to nearly 3,000 times to YouTube related incidents.
The figures showed that they had to attend on 2,794 occasions - a rise of more than two-thirds in five years.
Attention-seekers hope to make money from advertising on videos, showing them doing often stupid and dangerous things, by clocking up millions of views.
Several of the nuisance YouTubers have been seen risking their lives during their antics including standing on top of a moving train.
Police were forced to take action after 18-year-old Rikke Brewer was filmed in September jumping into the River Thames, reported .
The teenager, from Aldershot in Hampshire, was filmed along with a friend riding on top of Docklands Light Railway train as it crossed the London river.
Before it reached the other side the two jumped into the Thames in front of shocked onlookers.
It was late in the evening and dark when they pulled the reckless stunt which would have made any rescue operation all the more difficult.
A judge handed the idiotic Brewer a suspended prison sentence and an 18-month rehabilitation order.
British Transport Police said they had to deal with 41 YouTube related incidents on the country's rail networks last year.
Last month firefighters and ambulance crews were forced to free a man's head from a microwave after he effectively cemented himself into it.
Jay Swingler, 22, had to call the emergency services for help after he and friends mixed seven bags of Polyfilla before pouring it into the kitchen appliance.
His head was protected by just a plastic bag as he was encased with the builder's adhesive.
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Crews spent nearly an hour trying to free the dozy prankster, from Wolverhampton, as he struggled to breath.
Shaun Dakin, watch commander of the fire crew which rescued Swingler, said: "As funny as this sounds, this young man could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured."
He added: "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."
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