Fifty Shades of Grey effect keeping London’s firefighters busy

Fire chiefs are anticipating an increase in call outs to sexy scenarios gone wrong after the release of the much anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey movie.

London Fire Brigade has seen incidents of people being trapped in handcuffs and other household items increase year-on-year since the release of E.L James’ bestseller in 2011.

Third officer, Dave Brown, said: “The Fifty Shades effect seems to spike handcuff incidents so we hope film goers will use common sense and avoid leaving themselves red faced.

“I’d like to remind everyone that 999 is an emergency number and should only be used as such. If there’s a genuine emergency, fire crews will of course attend and will be on the scene to help within minutes.”

In Havering three people have had to be cut out of handcuffs by firefighters since February 2010.

While across London 472 people had become stuck or trapped in various scenarios.

In response the brigade has started a campaign called Fifty Shades of Red, asking people to think carefully before getting themselves into compromising situations.

In November last year firefighters came to the rescue of a man forced to have surgery to remove two metal rings that had been stuck on his penis for three days.

The man attended accident and emergency in the early hours but when doctors found they couldn’t remove the steel rings they called the brigade.

In eye-watering scenes, two firefighters scrubbed up and removed the rings using pedal cutters - a hydraulic handheld piece of cutting equipment.

A woman also called London Fire Brigade after her husband got wedged in a chastity belt.

Despite the campaign’s worldwide coverage, the brigade is still called to more than one embarrassing incident every day.

Despite the unusual nature of some of the incidents, the brigade was keen to stress that people should always call 999 in the case of a genuine emergency.