One of Max Verstappen’s track rivals was once in a perilous situation involving a microwave
Max Verstappen is set to take on 100 amateur go-kart racers on Wednesday afternoon. And one of his upcoming rivals controversially cemented his friend’s head in a microwave in a shocking stunt that went wrong.
YouTuber Romell Henry is set to race the Formula One superstar as part of ‘Max vs 100′. The Red Bull-led challenge will see the four-time world champion return to his go-karting roots in an attempt to overtake 100 amateur drivers in 30 laps at Silverstone.
Henry – who is best known as one half of the popular YouTube channel TGFbro – has taken on countless extreme pranks and stunts alongside co-star Jay Swingler on the channel, which has over six million subscribers.
However, the duo became infamous in 2017 after Henry enlisted the help of friends to cement Swingler’s head inside a microwave. They mixed seven bags of Polyfilla before pouring it around his head, which they attempted to protect by using a plastic bag inside the appliance.
An air tube was inserted in Swingler’s mouth to the bottom of the microwave, but the paste had hardened and expanded and left the YouTuber enduring increasing pressure on his head.
The group were forced to call the fire brigade after failing to free him for an hour and a half. Emergency services rushed to the garage where they had filmed the incident and managed to remove him from the microwave after almost an hour.
The West Midlands fire service posted photos of their efforts to free Swingler on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote the caption: “We’re seriously unimpressed? Five of our firefighters were tied up for an hour this afternoon, freeing a YouTube pranker whose head had been ‘cemented’ inside a microwave oven.”
Watch Commander Shaun Dakin insisted that Swingler’s life was in danger before his firefighters came to the rescue. He said: “As funny as this sounds, this young man could quite easily have suffocated or have been seriously injured.
“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. He was very relieved when we removed a large chunk of the Polyfilla with a screwdriver, allowing him to breathe more easily.
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“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.”
Henry will be joined by other individuals from the world of entertainment and TV in the race, such as former Love Island winner Amber Gill and YouTuber Manny. Verstappen will start from the back of the grid with the action to be shown live in the UK on Disney+.