The London Fire Brigade has issued a statement saying that the number of times the service has been called due to people stuck in objects like handcuffs and toilet seats has risen over the past three years.
“Some of the incidents our firefighters are called out could be prevented with a little common sense. I don’t know whether it’s the Fifty Shades effect, but the number of incidents involving items like handcuffs seems to have gone up." third officer Dave Brown said in the statement, pointing out that people should only call the U.K.'s emergency number (999) when there was a genuine emergency.
"I’m sure most people will be Fifty Shades of Red by the time our crews arrive to free them," Brown added.
Amongst the calls the fire brigade had responded to in the past three years:
• 18 incidents involving children with their heads stuck in potties or toilet seats
• Five incidents involving people’s hands being stuck in shredders
• 79 incidents involving people being trapped in handcuffs
• Nine instances of men with rings stuck on their penises.
• Four incidents where people had their hands stuck in blenders
• 17 incidents involving children with their fingers stuck in toys, including one with lego stuck on his finger
While it's unclear whether a work of erotic fiction could have resulted in all of these incidents, the statement's intention is clear — please stop doing this. According to the statement, each time the fire brigade is called to one of these incidents it costs the taxpayer at least £290, meaning that the total cost of these incidents for the tax payer has been £377,000 or $580,000 in the past three years.
The service has been using a Twitter hashtag to note the weirder incidents (#FiftyShadesofRed), such as this one:
Top tip from us today: don’t put your penis in a toaster. Read our most unusual incidents here: http://t.co/cdMMaTjtco#FiftyShadesofRed
— London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) July 29, 2013
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