CELEBRITY SAS: Who Dares Wins’ most savage trial is back and left stars including Welsh rugby champ Gareth Thomas and Towie’s Amber Turner fighting for their life.
In scenes that’ll play out in Sunday’s episode, the recruits are forced to remove their gas masks while scrambling to escape a room filled with toxic tear gas.
Seen grimacing in The Sun’s exclusive pictures, Gareth told me: “It was a horrific experience and something that you could never prepare for.
“I could smell it outside the door before we got in and was just thinking, ‘Oh my God.’
“And then you go inside, and it’s a thousand times worse.
“I remember a panic moment trying to look after Amber, she just bolted.
“Bizarrely, I had this flash of my father and my grandfather. Some people might think this is an old-fashioned thing, but I don’t.
“They instilled in me to always make sure that you open a door for a lady. You give a lady your seat.
“So when she started panicking I’m like, ‘Right, okay. Just make sure she gets out before me.’”
Former footballer Jermaine Pennant was in the same boat after taking on the challenge alongside singer Gareth Gates, with both dropping to their knees as they gagged after bursting out the locked room.
The Channel 4 series was filmed in the Vietnamese jungle last September.
Jermaine said: “I took my mask off and that instant it just felt like my lungs collapsed and was burning.
“You just feel like you’re swallowing lava. It is excruciating.
“You’ve got snot trickling from your nose. It is horrible.
“Your head’s all over the gaff because you’re panicking, feeling like you’re going to suffocate and can’t breathe and everything’s burning.
“Every minute you’re thinking I can’t go on. At every stage you’re thinking that you’re just going to collapse and you can’t take anymore.”
Amber added: “As soon as you inhale that gas, it’s like you’re not getting oxygen to your brain.
“I just went delirious, and I started panicking. I honestly felt like I was going to die.
“It’s like you’re being suffocated but you’re being burned from the inside.”
The recruits were all united in one common goal, though – advancing further than shamed MP Matt Hancock.
Love Island star Teddy Soares said: “I thought there’s no way I’m going to let Matt Hancock kick my ass. I would not be able to live that down.”
