Blaine's stunt takes breath away

NEW YORK: American magician and stunt artist David Blaine had to be pulled out by divers from a glass bubble aquarium in a New York plaza after he started to black out during an attempt to set a world record for holding one's breath under water.

Blaine was trying to break the existing record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds for holding one's breath under water, while simultaneously trying to free himself from handcuffs and chains. He had spent a week in the tank prior to attempting the feat. After taking his last breath, he hung motionless in the tank for almost five minutes, as he tried to remove the handcuffs. But, his mouth began to quiver as he struggled with the chains. Soon, nearly seven minutes into the stunt, the divers were sent in to rescue him. He got a final timing of seven minutes and eight seconds.

After inhaling oxygen and gaining back his breath, he addressed large number of people, who had assembled at the plaza of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to see his feat. Murat Gunel, who heads Blaine's medical team and an associate professor of neurosurgery at Yale University School of Medicine, said before the attempt: "He is pushing his body insanely to the limits." He said the challenge had taken a toll on the magician's body, including liver damage and rashes over his body. Blaine, 33, had started training for the event in December. He had lost 50 pounds so that his oxygen requirement is reduced. He had on earlier occasions balanced on a 22-inch circular platform atop a 100-foot pole for 35 hours, got himself buried alive in a see-through coffin for a week and survived inside a massive block of ice for 61 hours. He had also fasted for 44 days in a suspended acrylic box over the Thames River in London.

Blaine's inspiration

This stunt is a long way from the magic tricks that first made Blaine a star. Some have dubbed this performance art, others consider it madness.

So what inspired him to do this?

"As a kid I was always obsessed with Houdini, who always did underwater stunts," he said.

"He would get shackled up and put into swimming pools and he would escape before he drowned. And those images always sparked an interest."

Blaine's human aquarium is on full public view, right in the middle of the plaza at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Whether opera lovers on route to this week's performance of Wagner's Lohengrin will appreciate the illusionist's daring dunk remains to be seen.

But the idea is that people will be able to walk up to the sphere, touch it, take photographs and offer support.