David Blaine, a young and talented magician, is rapidly changing the face of magic. Known as the “magician of the millennium” Blaine broke through cult status by levitating on the streets of New York in his first ABC special “David Blaine: Street Magic” in 1997.

On May l, 2006, Blaine was submerged in an 8 foot (2.4m) diameter, water-filled sphere (isotonic saline, 0.9% salt) in front of the Lincoln Center in New York for a planned seven days and seven nights, using tubes for air and nutrition. He did succeed in setting a record (as yet unrecognized by any record-keeping institution) for being fully submerged in water for more than seven days straight (170+ hours).

He concluded this event by attempting to hold his breath underwater to break the world record of 8 minutes, 58 seconds. In a change to the original stunt plans, while attempting to break this record, Blaine also tried to free himself from handcuffs and chains put on him upon coming out after the week in the sphere. Blain held his breath for 7 minutes and 8 seconds before being pulled up by the support divers, thus failing in his attempt. It has been said that David would have been less than 38 seconds from death if he’d not been rescued by divers, due to high carbon dioxide levels in his body.