An escape artist has parachuted safely to the ground after freeing himself from handcuffs and a locked coffin while it was falling from 14,500 feet in the air.
Anthony Martin waved to a crowd after landing softly Tuesday in a field in Serena, Illinois, about 70 miles southwest of Chicago.
He says after freeing himself, he watched the box plummet to the ground. He first performed the stunt 25 years ago.
I'm alive: Escape artist Anthony Martin raises his hands in celebration after successfully escaping from handcuffs and a box he was locked in
The 47-year-old Wisconsin man was locked in the casket with his hands cuffed to a belt and his right arm chained to the inside of the box.
Two skydivers held the outside of the box to help steady it as Martin tried to escape from it.
Martin said in a recent interview his father shattered his early fascination with magic when he explained the trickery behind a floating pen illusion.
So at age 6, he resolved to find a more respectable means of impressing an audience and began studying the art of escape.
'I thought that skill and knowledge could surpass trickery and magic,' he said.
Martin took locks apart until he understood how the mechanisms operate and are put together.
Coffin: Anthony Martin was handcuffed and locked inside the above box that was dropped from an airplane in Ottawa, Illinois
Celebrations: Martin hugs a crew member after successfully escaping from the mid-air coffin
'At 10 I had pretty much started to specialize in escapes,' he said. 'By the time I was 13, the sheriff was locking me in his handcuffs. And I was getting out.'
Jumping from a raft into a lake at age 11 – naturally, with his hands cuffed behind his back – whet Martin's appetite for high risk escapes.
So in February 1990, he performed his most dangerous water stunt, in which he was locked in a cage and lowered through a hole in the ice and into the frigid water at a Wisconsin quarry. It took him one minute and 45 seconds to emerge.
'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.'
Autographs: Martin signs an autograph for a girl after his successful escape
On Tuesday, Martin revisited arguably his most dangerous escape – an August 1988 stunt in which he escaped from a casket dropped from a plane at 13,500 feet. It was just his 17th skydive.
He hopped inside a plywood box with his hands cuffed to a belt around his waist and his right arm chained to the inside of the box. The casket's door was then held tight with a prison door lock for which no key exists; a locksmith scrambled the tumblers.
The box was then rolled out of the plane – a Short SC.7 Skyvan – at about 14,500 feet. Two skydivers stabilized the box by holding handles on the side, while a drogue similar to the parachutes used to slow drag-racing cars and fighter jets further steadied it from the top as Martin picked the locks.
He confidently expected to be free and tracking away at around 7,000 feet after about 40 seconds of free fall. It's not yet clear at what height the super star escapist escaped.
He did it again: Anthony Martin, pictured here escaping from a wooden box that was locked and pushed out of a plane at 13,500 feet in August 1988, in Sandwich, Illinois, pulled off the impressive stunt again on Tuesday
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2385648/Anthony-Martin-trick-Escape-artist-frees-coffin-whilst-falling-14-500ft-plane.html#ixzz2bE8SVrIB
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