That's How It Happened

It seems I was completely wrong about Drowned Alive. I suggested he was going to breathe 100% O2, and that if he failed it might be due to shallow water blackout. Instead if you watch the video of the final minutes (YouTube 9.20mins), you can see that he actually hits (or more likely pretends to hit) breakpoint because he gets involuntary diaphragmatic contraction. The phenomenon is well known to freedivers, and is explained in this ancient paper. The underlying respiratory rhythm just kicks back in when your brainstem can't stand the hypoxia/hypercapnia anymore.

I have a bugbear about inappropriate depiction of resuscitation efforts on TV and film. However the absolutely clueless way in which Blaine was released from his shackles, and left upright in the water, makes me pretty sure this was all still fake. If the doctors on set were really worried that this was a peri-arrest situation, they couldn't have allowed anything so negligent. I think he had pre-apnoea oxygen and then faked the breakpoint. It makes for good TV anyhow.

Interestingly a paper about Blaine's starvation stunt is now in the semi-public domain. It's a letter from the New England Journal, from November 2005. I've reprinted the full text below because it makes for quite convincing reading:

"The opportunity to study the effects of refeeding after prolonged fasting is rare. We recorded anthropometric, biochemical, and endocrine changes during the refeeding period after a much-publicized 44-day fast by David Blaine, a performance artist; we compared the findings with results obtained from a control group of 16 age-matched men who had a similar body-mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) after an overnight fast. Blaine ingested only water during his fast. He lost 24.5 kg (25 percent of his original body weight), and his body-mass index dropped from 29.0 to 21.6. His appearance and body-mass index after his fast would not by themselves have alerted us to the risks of refeeding. Despite cautious management, he had hypophosphatemia and fluid retention, important elements of the refeeding syndrome.After hospital admission, he underwent hypocaloric refeeding for the first three days with an oral, nutritionally complete liquid formulation and oral vitamin and mineral supplementation (Fig. 1). His metabolic status when he arrived at the hospital on completion of the fast showed preserved blood sugar of 5.2 mmol per liter and normal levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, but elevated levels of free fatty acids (1.53 mmol per liter; control-group mean [±SD], 0.50+0.27 mmol per liter) and a greatly elevated hydroxybutyrate level (4.92 mmol per liter; control-group mean, 0.163+034 mmol per liter). The levels of vitamins B1 and B6 were depleted but were replenished immediately after admission. Hemoconcentration was observed on the day Blaine was admitted (day 0), and by day 10 there was slight edema, despite a restricted salt intake. On admission, his potassium level was slightly low (3.3 mmol per liter), but the magnesium level was normal. Subsequently, the potassium concentration returned to normal with oral supplementation. Hypophosphatemia was observed on day 1 (Fig. 1), necessitating prompt treatment with intravenous phosphate. Grossly elevated levels of vitamin B12 (>1500 ng per liter; normal range, 150 to 900), high levels of zinc (31.7 mmol per liter; normal range, 11 to 24), and slightly abnormal liver function (alanine aminotransferase, 218 U per liter; aspartate aminotransferase, 157 U per liter) were also observed. High levels of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 1 (33 ng per milliliter; control, 14±11 ng per milliliter), somatostatin, and cortisol, low-to-normal levels of insulin and very low levels of insulin-like growth factor I (65 ng per milliliter; control, 211±53 ng per milliliter), leptin (1.7 ng per milliliter; control, 4.6±3.6 ng per milliliter), and ghrelin (27.6 pmol per liter; control, 218±157 fmol per milliliter) were observed at the end of the fast; circulating levels of peptide YY, agoutirelated peptide, α-melanocortin-stimulating hormone, neuropeptide Y, and pro-opiomelanocortin were not substantially different from the levels in control subjects after an overnight fast. Blaine's sensation of hunger, which he did not have during the first few days, increased considerably on day 3; this increase had been immediately preceded by an elevation in plasma levels of orexin A and resistin, an observation of unclear relevance, given the available data."

Tags: blaine, apnoea