DAVID BLAINE - BLAINE TRAINER SAYS BREATH STUNT ALMOST WENT AWRY

In his attempt to challenge the "breath hold" record of 8 minutes and 58 seconds,  magician David Blaine lapsed into unconsciousness on national television Monday night and was convulsing when rescuers brought him to the surface of a spherical aquarium in New York's Lincoln Center where he had been submerged for a week, one of the rescuers told the Associated Press Tuesday. Professional freediving trainer Kirk Krack, who had worked with Blaine before the stunt, told the A.P.: "I wasn't focused on records; I was thinking of a rescue. ... If we hadn't intervened, he would still be at the bottom of the sphere doing a breath-hold." The wire service said that Blaine was in a wheel chair as he left Roosevelt Hospital in New York Tuesday and that friends helped him walk to a waiting car that drove him home.

10/05/2006