Ever wonder what your hand would look like if you spent 48 hours underwater? Probably worse than this, as David Blaine is a) in a saline solution and b) has been wearing gloves and c) gets his hands dried off by sticking them out of the bubble twice a day. Still, yuck.
More of my David Blaine cameraphone pics can be found here.
P.S.: I did talk to David again through this wire linkup. (He puts on a scuba helmet for sleeping and media interviews, the rest of the time he just has a small mouthpiece). He said his hands hurt “a lot worse” than yesterday but he seemed to be in good spirits.
Also learned a little bit more about how he goes to the bathroom: he has a “condom-catheter” on, with a tube running down his leg to his ankle. When he needs to go, he just puts his leg by the outtake valve in the sphere (the saline solution is constantly getting recycled) and lets loose. His doctor was comparing his time in the globe to running an ultramarathon, in terms of lack of food, sleep, etc.
Rainbows be damned; I’m pretty sure when God decides to destroy Man again, He’ll cite David Blaine as one of the reasons.
The news is advertising his 9-minute breath holding stunt like it’s some big deal…let me tell you, it’s not. He’s definitely cheating, because he’s breathing compressed air which is closer to pure oxygen because he’s living underwater. Pure oxygen can make one hold their breath for 15 minutes under water. So his breath won’t be certified as a world record, and even though he has everyone thinking he’s doing something spectacular, he’s not. Have him hold his breath for 15 minutes after breathing pure oxygen – then I’d be impressed.
Uncrazy, I don’t understand. Why is compressed air “closer to pure oxygen because he’s living underwater”? What does living underwater have to do with it? Whether or not it’s a world record, it does strike me as a pretty grueling test of human endurance.
yikes…….if that’s how bad his hand got wrinkled up, then i shudder to think how bad his ….. nevermind.
Ask Derek. I think he gave him a peak …
For what it’s worth, today I spoke with Blaine’s spokesman, Pat Smith, and asked about Uncrazy’s points. Smith said that:
a) Blaine is breathing compressed air without any additional oxygen content, so he doesn’t derive any additional benefit from it;
b) they’ve always been clear his breath hold attempt won’t be certified as a world record, because the diving association that certifies world records requires its own judges etc. They decided that was too much bureacracy for a live television event;
c) Competitive freediving is divided into various events. The 8:58 world record is for “static apnea” where the competitor is just sitting there in a pool. Blaine will presumably be using oxygen while exerting getting free from the chains.
Obviously I’m not qualified to say whether this is accurate or not … just passing it on.
In the medworld the catheter that Mr Blaine is using is also called a “TEXAS catheter” ……Just a little bit of trivia:)
Hey Derek,
I was just looking at Google News, and your story “Bubble Trouble” was on their front page in the entertainment section!!! I actually clicked on the link on Google News before I realised it was your story.
what a pussy, he passed out after 7 min and 8 sec, 1min and 50 sec off his goal, then cryed about all his great support. I hoped he would drowned.
Oh no Pat! Damn your evil! 🙂
I hope to see you at the Hater’s Ball 06′ to pick up your award.
Some guy on Ebay is selling water from David Blaine’s Drowned Alive. It’s kind of funny he would even try to do that. Don’t you think? The pictures are funny though.
Abracadabra
Here is a short URL http://tinyurl.com/j7p7w
If David Blaine had succeded in reaching the 9 minute mark he probably would have also succeeded in conning the world that he’d broken a world record. He has not spent years training as a freediver and it is highly likeley that he was breathing pure oxygen just before the breath_hold attempt, this explains why the free-diving governing body (AIDA) were not invited to verify this so-called record attempt.
A likely scenario is as follows
Depleted oxygen air mix for the seven days in subersion to build up red cell count. This is similar to the high altiude training that athletes go through) – theres nothing nothing wrong with this
He then would have Switched to pure oxygen for an hour or so before the breath hold attempt, thereby super-charging his red-cell enriched blood with oxygen (Not permitted in APNEA record attempts)
As a rule of thumb breathing pure oxygen before-hand doubles your breath-holding capacity, we can therefore assume that David held his breath for around 3.5 minutes.
Umberto Pellizari, the Italian record breaking freediver has a lung capacity
of around 7 litres; (average is 4.5 – 5 ltrs), his static is approx 7 minutes !! hope this puts things in perspective.