10 Magic Tricks That Went Disastrously Wrong Live

5. Dean Gunnarson Dies (Temporarily)

No matter how much you practice or how skilled you are at daring escape tricks, locking yourself in an underwater coffin is tempting fate.

But that's exactly what Dean Gunnarson did in 1983 while performing his escape trick in front of a massive audience.

Gunnarson was wrapped in chains, nailed inside a wooden coffin (which was also sealed with chains), and lowered into the water. After almost four minutes of being trapped in the drink, there was no sign of him - so his coffin was brought to the surface.

Emergency crews prised open the coffin to find a cold, blue, lifeless Gunnarson stuck inside. They quickly moved him to an ambulance and attempted to resuscitate him, with Gunnarson regaining consciousness shortly after.

Gunnarson said he saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was thanks to the swift actions of the emergency professionals at the scene that he was able to hold on to his life.

 
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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!