Anthony Martin Plans Coffin Skydive, Escape Artist Will Take Leap Of Faith At 14,500 Feet
Anthony Martin will be locked in a coffin, handcuffed and chained – and plans on escaping after being dropped out of an airplane at 14,500 feet.
The 47-year-old escape artist will plunge from the sky on Tuesday in Serena, Ill., in an effort to replicate an escape he survived 25 years ago, the Associated Press reports. Martin hopes to make it out in about 40 seconds, where he will be around 7,000 feet above the ground.
"You try to get yourself to the point where there's really not a lot of fear involved. Fear is one of those emotions that kind of distracts from your ability to think clearly and be effective," Martin said before the jump that will take place at 2 p.m.
Martin will be inside a plywood box with his hands cuffed to a belt around his waist and his right arm chained to the box. Locksmiths will scramble the lock tumblers before his jump, making the existing key nonfunctional. If he escapes, his parachute will allow him to safely land in a field by the town in southern Illinois.
Two skydivers will accompany Martin on the jump. They will stabilize the box by holding the box’s handles. A drogue, a parachute used to slow down drag racing cars, will be attached to the coffin to slow it down. According to a press release about the event, the coffin will be falling at a rate of 200 feet per second.
On August 28, 1988, when Martin 22 years old, he was handcuffed with padlocks in a freight box that was dropped out of a cargo plane at 13,500 feet. At about 6,500 feet Martin escaped. Two years later her performed a water stunt where he was locked in a cage, lowered into frigid water in his native Wisconsin and escaped in 45 seconds, AP reports.
"It was very, very cold," Martin said. "It doesn't take long for your fingers, even with gloves, to get numb and lose effectiveness ... you have to work very quickly."
On his website, Martin explains he uses his skills “as an evangelistic event to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
And Martin asserts that he doesn’t cheat. “I’d rather be applauded for my skill rather than my ability to deceive somebody,” he told the Times News.
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