David Blaine was born April 4th 1973, an asthmatic with the lower-than-average lung capacity. In spite of this, by the time he was a teenager, he had broken Harry Houdini's breath-hold record of 3 minutes and 30 seconds. In 1997 a 23 year old Blaine debuted his first television special street magic. Fellow magician Penn Jillette declared it the biggest breakthrough in our lifetime and the best TV magic special ever done. Two years later, Blaine performed his first endurance stunt. He was buried alive for seven days and seven nights with no food. Theories such as the use o f a hologram were so pervasive that even his friends began to wonder if it was fake. It was real. One year later, Blaine was encased in a giant block of ice in the heart of Times Square for three days and three nights. After 63 hours, suffering severe pain and extreme hallucinations, he was removed from the ice and rushed to the hospital. It took him months to recover. A year and a half later, Blaine stood on a pillar 22 inches wide
and 100 feet tall above Bryant Park. After 35 hours, severely dehydrated and
sleep-deprived, he concluded the stunt by jumping down into a pile of cardboard boxes, and suffered a concussion and a fractured rib. The following year, sealed in a plexiglass box suspended high in the air next
to the Tower Bridge in London, Blaine fasted on nothing but water for 44 days. When it was over Blaine's doctor,
convinced that he had somehow cheated, administered an IV drip full of nutrients. His phosphate levels spiked and he nearly died. A short while later, he co-authored an academic
paper about his feat with that very same doctor. Following this experience, Blaine wanted to go one step further. After a vigorous year of training, he spent seven consecutive days in a water-filled Sphere in New York City- the longest submersion under water ever recorded. On the second day, suffering from mild organ failure, Blaine rejected multiple attempts by
his medical team to end the stunt. On the last day, while handcuffed, Blaine
attempted a world record breath hold. Seven minutes in he began blacking out and divers jumped in to save his life. Determined to succeed, he trained relentlessly for the next two years. On April 30th 2008, pushing through excruciating pain and ischemia to the heart, he shattered the world record by holding his breath underwater for 17 minutes and four seconds, live on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Over the next few years, Blaine shot a bullet
into his mouth twice, withstood a million volts of electricity continuously for three days, and resuscitated an act that killed a man 100 years prior involving swallowing a deadly amount of water and kerosene and spouting them out at will. He has also shoved an ice pick through his hands and biceps, sewed his mouth shut, and stored the same three frogs in his stomach thousands of times, eaten over 30 pounds of glass, performed thousands of breath holds- averaging 10 minutes each, and gained and lost the weight of six grizzly bears. There are those who say "you're a magician, why
not just stick with magic instead of these feats?" But, David believes that pushing through the pain to achieve what seems impossible is a more gratifying form of magic. And though it's caused me a lot of worry over the years, I guess I have to agree with him.
Then the water turned into cheez its!
But has he driven off grand canyon into a cage hanging from a helicopter?
I mean I knew he was a limit pusher and could probably rattle off a few of these stunts, but I had no idea the extent to which he has gone. That resume would be absolutely unbelievable if not for the video evidence documenting it.
“He stored the same three frogs in his stomach thousands of times.” Wait, what?! The same three!?!?
Lets bring the focus back to Rampart, people
What the eff
this actually made me respect him somewhat, until this all i heard were parodies and jokes about him
Man I remember when he was in the box over the Thames. On Sky (UK) they had a dedicated feed and my dad and I would watch it every morning when I ate my breakfast before school. Nice memories
The swallowing and eating glass stuff is real, and are well known magic tricks. Most of the endurance stuff are a mixture of tricks and real endurance, and the bullet stuff is 100% fake. The guys is incredibly talented and works unbelievably hard, but it is sad that he isn't quite as morally guided as some of his heroes / contemporaries (I'm thinking of Penn and Teller here)
Penn on David Blane