Turkish man locks head in wire cage to quit smoking

How far would you go to quit smoking?

A Turkish man has literally locked his head in a cage as a last ditch attempt to quit the habit. In a YouTube video, 42-year-old Ibrahim Yucel explains why he went to such an extreme measure:

“I have been smoking since high school,” he says in the video. “I have tried to quit smoking each year on my birthday. Unfortunately, I could not.”

Yucel told the Hurriyet Daily News that he smoked two packs a day for more than 20 years before putting on the cage helmet, which he says was inspired by seeing motorcycle riders in helmets.

"My father developed lung cancer and died because of smoking,” Yucel says in the video. “I decided it was time to hinder my will.”

And for at least two days he’s managed to stay cigarette free, though not without some serious effort and potential embarrassment.

To construct the helmet cage, Yucel took around 130 feet of copper wire and wound it into a tight circle and placed two locks at the bottom of the cage. When he heads out to work each morning, he gives the cage keys to either his wife or his daughter.

Initially, Yucel’s wife says seeing her husband walking around with a cage on his head bothered her but she says she now supports the move. “This cage is embarrassing at first, but he wants to quit smoking,” she says in the video.

While at work, Yucel says he can drink water through a straw and manages to eat small crackers through openings in the wire helmet.

“I swear an oath to Allah and the Quran,” Yucel says in the video while wearing the cage helmet. “I’m not going to smoke again.”

Building a cage for your own head might be less extreme than the plan to quit smoking employed by California’s Etta Mae Lopez. In May, the 31-year-old waited outside a police station where she subsequently slapped a police officer. It was all according to plan: Lopez wanted to be sent to jail, where smoking is prohibited. And she got her wish with a 63-day sentence.