Near-death experiences

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/04/2016 (3517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Oct. 31, 1982, Dean Gunnarson, wearing a straightjacket, was dangled upside-down in front of the old Winnipeg Free Press building on Carlton Street. Thousands of Winnipeggers witnessed the teenager slither free — and he did it 20 seconds faster than his hero, Harry Houdini, when Houdini tried the same stunt.

A year later, the young escape artist wanted to attempt a more daring stunt: Gunnarson would handcuff and chain himself inside a coffin, which would be dropped into the icy waters of the Red River. A huge audience witnessed the escape go wrong and Gunnarson nearly died. This is the untold story of what it was like inside the coffin, as told in Carolyn Gray’s new book Dean Gunnarson: The Making of an Escape Artist.

There will be a book launch on April 24 at 2 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers.

 

The wind blowing off the water howled words into Dean’s ears. He didn’t understand their meaning but they felt ominous. He waved to the crowd. One last chance to see if his most special friend had shown up. Dark suit, dark hair, dark eyes. Houdini. He should be there. But there was no sign of him. Odd he couldn’t imagine Houdini anymore. Why?

“Lie down,” Garry said nervously.

“Not quite yet, Dad,” said Dean.

Four assistants chained him around his wrists and ankles. He looked so dashing, it was a shame to box him up. But down he went. Dean settled back in his narrow homemade coffin. Had Houdini been there and he’d just missed him? Garry Gunnarson pounded the nails into the coffin lid with a hammer, wrapped the whole box in chains and locked them. He was working double-time. Garry then heaved himself up into the cherry picker, turned the ignition on, and it roared with a pitiless power. The crane began to lift. Dean had already escaped the handcuffs before the coffin was off the ground. The coffin lifted and was up and out over the Red River. Cinder blocks hanging from the four corners of the coffin (so it would sink, and sink levelly) dangled insubstantially in the raw October wind, like fruit on a branch in the breeze. If Dean had practised the complete escape even once, he would have known the cinder blocks weren’t nearly enough.

It was showtime.

His father let the coffin drop. Dean had a good idea of how long it would take for the coffin to make contact with the Red, and his instincts were right. At the correct moment, Dean emptied his lungs with all his force, and then filled them to capacity as Houdini always did in water escapes. The coffin hit the water with an earthquake jolt. The back of Dean’s head cracked against the wood. Water rushed in from all angles from the pre-drilled holes, from unseeable inky corners. Disorientation was immediate. Dean didn’t know if he was up or down, but then he perceived the coffin wasn’t sinking as planned. It lay stubbornly on an angle, 3/4 submerged with an air pocket all around his head like a halo. This was unexpected, but could afford him another huge breath. It would buy him extra time. He decided to steal some air.

Again Dean pushed out his air with brute force so he could get the big breath in.

That’s when the coffin went down like it had taken a knockout punch. Submerged. No air to take in. All that breath-holding practice in vain.

His thought was — now I’ve done it.

For an escape artist, there’s only one way to die.

Regular folk, if they’re inclined to worry about death, might consider all the dangers waiting to claim them: car accident, plane crash, heart attack. There’s something waiting at every corner. But a good escapist doesn’t think like that. He knows if he miscalculates the timing of that last crucial breath in an underwater coffin escape, the way to die is not drowning.

The way to die is calmly.

Relax. Slow your pounding heart rate down and let the fear go — like bath water swirling down the drain. Welcome the water into your lungs to fill you like a vessel. And go into the light without hesitation — the light that sucks you in and shoots you out of the world like riding the Mega Drop at the Ex on a Saturday afternoon — the big drop. Without end.

Dean Gunnarson understood how to die.

He pushed his consciousness away and went into a meditative state.

He knew he would be pulled up in two minutes. That was the agreement. If he hadn’t surfaced by the two-minute mark, his father would raise the coffin. Only two minutes. He could hold his breath for over twice that in the warmth. In the cold, he could make two minutes for sure.

He waited and counted to himself. One minute. One-thirty. One forty-five. Two minutes. No one was pulling him up. Two-fifteen. Two-thirty. His lungs were bursting. Okay, something had gone wrong above ground. Slightly wrong. But nothing could go too wrong. There’s be no conceivable reason not to pull him up. Yes, he was going to drown, he knew that, but his rescue was imminent. He was back in the cancer ward taking a shot to the spine. Take the pain. Don’t show fear. He knew how to do that. Time to let go. When it’s time, it’s time.

So Dean let everything go. Water filled him up. There was the corridor, and there was the light at the end and he fairly flew toward it, little legs pumping. A little blond boy, running through the tall grass, cold wind ruffling his fair hair. He checked back over his shoulder. He hoped a friend was coming to run with him. But no, he was alone under an immeasurable, blue sky, so alone his heart hurt for the lack of people. The wind grew stronger. His feet lifted off the ground, he felt his soul fly. He opened his arms wide, with a flourish like an old friend had once taught him, and his soul was sucked into a vacuum stream. It was glorious, but he missed the feel of the ground under his feet. Maybe only another minute of flight, maybe… Or maybe more. Maybe he’d fly forever. His last thought before everything went black was I’m flying — God help me.

Above, on dry land, 12-year-old boy Phillip Hornan had elbowed his way to the very front of the crowd with his father Gordon. Phillip always wore his beloved Casio digital watch. Big digital watches were very cool in 1983. Philip used that watch regularly for a very important reason — to know when he needed to take his meds. But this time he was checking the seconds for his new friend. Few people in the thrill-seeking crowd would imagine that the man in the coffin and the little ill-looking pale boy had met in the cancer ward, and that they practised magic together.

Phillip had a gut feeling Dean had been down there way too long.

By his calculations, from what he knew about Houdini, Dean should have broken the surface already. He told his dad: “Something’s wrong.”

“He must know what he’s doing,” said Mr. Hornan. “You wouldn’t try something like that and not know what you’re doing.” But Gordon Hornan was feeling short of breath and panicky. And helpless.

There was nothing to be done but watch and wait. Dean would be hauled up soon.

Bryant Stevens (Gunnarson’s manager) was on the stop watch. He called it to Garry. “Two minutes! Pull it up — now!”

Garry Gunnarson tugged the ropes and heaved the coffin up, water spewing from the gaps in the box.

But then he quickly lowered the coffin back underwater again.

The crowd collectively gasped. It was a confusing move. Since when do escapists go back in?

What the crowd didn’t know was that Gary Gunnarson had seen Dean gesture to him from the coffin, saw him point down as if to say, ‘Put me back under — I want the chance to do the trick right. Give me more time.’

And Garry had complied.

But the coffin was made completely of wood. He could not have seen Dean. Garry had had a vision.

It’s hard to resist holding your breath along with an escapist who goes underwater. I’d guess the whole audience there tried, for a time. But at three minutes and forty-seven seconds, everyone above ground would be breathing again. And agitated. This escape? It wasn’t fun.

“Hey,” someone shouted out. “I bet he was never even in the coffin in the first place!”

The crowd lost its focus, and began looking left and right in anticipation of Dean’s big reappearance.

“I don’t get it,” another shouted out. This was nothing like last year’s straightjacket performance.

Philip tugged at his father’s sleeve in a panic, insisting he do something. Phil’s Casio watch began beeping incessantly. Time for meds. Your time is up.

“Dad! Dad! He must be dying!”

“I know, Phil!” cried Gordon. “I’m scared, too.”

They clenched one another’s hands.

That’s when Gary Gunnarson hauled Dean up for the second time. By then, his son was dead.

Dean Gunnarson somehow managed to escape death on this day. In the following 30 years, this Manitoban would escape death hundreds of times in events around the world — earning him praise as “better than Houdini.”

Excerpted with permission from Great Plains Publications. Copyright 2016.