David Blaine Breaks Breath-Holding Record on Oprah
April 30, 2008

After failing to set a world record for an unassisted record for holding your breath underwater back in 2006 at New York’s Lincoln Center, the death defying David Blaine set a world record for breath-holding in Chicago on the stage of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Although Blaine’s prior attempt was a stand-alone fresh air breath-hold in 2006, this time he was allowed to breath pure oxygen for 23 minutes prior to being submerged in a tank in front of Oprah and a wide audience. Although the 2006 attempt lasted close to 9 minutes, the 35 year old Blaine set a record after holding his breath for a whopping 17 minutes and 4 seconds, which beat the previous record of 16 minutes and 32 seconds.

While a nervous Oprah looked on, obviously wrought with anticipation and anxiousness, David Blaine looked relatively calm in the round tank on stage. After breaking the record and climbing out of the tank, Blaine confirmed that he indeed felt calm and also felt great after the uneasy spectacle, which fulfilled a dream dating back to when he was a child. The smiling Blaine was a much-improved sight after his last attempt in 2006 left him physically drained and obviously disappointed.

After Blaine came up for air, a representative for The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that he had indeed broken the record.

In 1999, David Blaine turned his attention toward tests of endurance after rising to fame with his popular street magic. The same year, David Blaine performed his now famous Premature Burial stunt, which saw Blaine buried in an open pit inside a glass coffin for seven days. Blaine then went on to bigger tests, like his Frozen in Time feat, which had him encased in ice for almost 62 hours, Vertigo, where he spend 35 hours on a 22 inch wide pillar, 100 feet in the air, without any safety equipment, and his Above the Below stunt, inside of a clear box suspended over River Thames in London for 44 days.

[Editor’s note: To all of the TV producers out there... Since we’re still in the glory days of remaking old shows, you might want to grab David Blaine for a revamp of the old Patrick Duffy series Man from Atlantis.]