Being buried alive? It’s even scarier than you think
Just ask the Huddersfield Houdini who nearly died trying it this week
So here we are, in a huddersfield block of flats, having a lesson on what to do if you ever happen to find yourself buried alive, six feet under. ‘remember, at that depth you’ve got about six tonnes of earth press-ing down on you. You have to pretty much use every muscle in your body to punch up, up, up through it,’ says Antony Britton who, surreally, shows me by pummelling his way through some sofa cushions.
‘It’s pitch black and the dampness is overwhelming. The soil is up your nose, in your mouth, in your eyes.
‘It’s like being in a vice. Your ribs and head are crushed. You are literally having the life squeezed out of you.’
There is, I discover, a touch of the sadist about Antony as he tells me what else is in store.
‘If you don’t move quickly enough you’ll be dealing with broken bones, brain damage, burst blood vessels. Your eyeballs could pop out of their sockets. The key is to not panic, because if you do, it’s game over.’
Antony, 38, knows because he’s done this and, by some miracle, sur-vived (eyeballs intact) with just a broken rib and ruptured pride.
It’s hard to be too sympathetic, because for him being buried alive was a deliberate act. An escapolo-gist by trade (‘I do put it on official forms, although sometimes I call myself a “stunt performer”,’) he has spent 20 years thinking up ever more elaborate ways to put himself in death-defyingly situations, then exit them with a flourish.
escaping his own burial — as he tried to do last weekend — was the ultimate challenge. In the past 100 years, only two others, he claims, have attempted it — one of them his hero, the legendary harry houdini, who tried it in 1915. even he failed.
So why did this Yorkshireman, trained as a welder, think he could succeed? ‘ Because I am bloody good!’ he says, puffing up his chest as much as he can manage, given that broken rib.
But not good enough. The stunt in a park near huddersfield — wit-nessed by spectators at first gripped, then horrified — was a disaster. Instead of bursting from the ground, Antony was hauled out unconscious, needing resuscitation.
he was dubbed the worst escapol-ogist ever. So, was he a loon? Worse, a loon with a death-wish?
his previous escapades have had a whiff of Monty Python about them. he nearly died during one stunt when he ended up hanging upside down, in a strait-jacket, from a burn-ing rope, after failing to take account of a hazard that he endearingly calls ‘the Great British Weather’. high winds whipped the flames up the rope, and he dislocated a shoulder as he was lowered, faster than planned and with a burned arm.
Undaunted, he says worse things happen at sea (or, more likely, sub- merged in a milk churn, in chains — a stunt he actually succeeds at).
‘I have done my shoulder in a few times,’ he says. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds, and I can pop it out of the socket myself now and put it back in. It makes getting out of certain situations easier.’ It’s hard to know whether to commiserate with our hapless houdini, or suggest he needs help. Although physically impressive (he gets up at 4am to go running), he cuts a pitiful figure, shuffling to the kitchen to pop painkillers.
Certainly, he’s inflicted pain on the people around him. Currently, he’s single after a 17-year relationship. ‘She hated the escapology. Couldn’t bring herself to watch.’
Also, his mum pleaded with him not to do the burial stunt and has barely stopped crying since. his dad and sister made their own escape, going on holiday abroad because they couldn’t bear to watch it.
Not that he was thinking about them when he curled up in the foetal position in that grave last Saturday and braced himself for six tonnes of earth landing on top of him.
What was going through his head? ‘I was singing, not out loud, obviously, but in my head, to keep the focus.’
Blimey. What would one sing in such circumstances? ‘Great Balls of Fire, by Jerry Lee Lewis,’ he grins. of course. You’d need them. As a child, Antony was obsessed with magic and illusion but he was too clumsy to be any good at it. he was agile, though, and tells of break-i ng his school- night curfew by climbing out of his bedroom win-dow, running along the roof and shimmying down a drainpipe.
As for escapology, he started off with ropes and chains. ‘By the time I was 14 or 15, I was throwing myself in the local canal while chained up. The lock-keeper would say: “Not you again! how many times have I said you shouldn’t do this?” ’
his parents sound sensible souls (his mum was a housewife; his dad worked for BT). What did they make of their son handcuffing himself to the rafters? ‘They knew that if I was determined to do something, they couldn’t stop me.’
he’d go to B&Q and tell bemused staff what he planned to do with the rope he was buying. In his 20s, he was handcuffed by police after getting caught up in a bar brawl, and picked the lock. ‘I always carry hair pins. every escapologist does.’ The police were unamused.
Antony believes escapology appeals to people because ‘everyone is escap-ing from something in life — debt, a job, an unhappy relationship.’ So what is he trying to flee? ‘reality,’ he replies. ‘It sucks.’ Being an escapologist is also a darn sight more interesting (and slightly better-paid) than being a welder. Antony says he makes a modest living performing at shows, mostly alongside clowns and unicy-clists and fire-throwers.
his big party-trick is escaping from a burning cage, but it’s difficult getting the right licence (‘health and safety, you know’) so most stunts happen on privately owned land.
If he were based in Las Vegas, he might be a superstar, but being here, there is something very eddie the eagle about his preparations.
even digging the hole last Saturday wasn’t straightforward for his ‘expert’ escapology back-up team. ‘We asked grave-diggers, but no one wanted to know. Initially, we had guys with spades, but that was a nightmare because it takes for ever.’ So a mechanical digger was found with an operator called Liam, who is the true hero of this story because his prompt actions saved Antony’s life.
Antony had never tried the full stunt before last week’s attempt at a fundraising day for escape For Life, a charity he fronts. he had tried twice with four tonnes on top of him: one attempt worked, and the other was aborted when his legs got stuck.
But four tonnes isn’t six tonnes, is it? ‘No, but experience told me it
‘You’re having the life squeezed out of you’ ‘I reckon I was just seconds from death’
AN Army captain was yesterday jailed for seven years for raping a guest at his home as his wife-tobe slept in the room next door. Sandhurst graduate Daniel Howard, 29, who got married only three weeks ago, was told his drunken attack had ruined his victim’s life.
She bravely faced her attacker in court to tell him: ‘This will always be part of my life that I have to learn to deal with. I don’t think I will ever fully recover.’
Howard, an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps who served in Afghanistan, denied rape but was convicted after a four-day trial.
He had repeatedly denied anything happened between them and claimed his accuser was making up the nighttime attack in a spare bedroom.
Then in court, Howard put forward what was called a ‘ludicrous, coldblooded and insulting’ defence by
‘Have you had a good time?’
attempting to explain away damning DNA evidence by suggesting he and the woman had used the same sex toy by chance.
The attack happened in February last year in the apartment Howard shared with fiancée April Broadgate, 26, in Darlington.
She refused to believe the woman and supported her husband – ignoring advice about postponing the wedding until the outcome of the case.
Howard wore full ceremonial uniform when they tied the knot in a lavish ceremony three weeks ago and she posted photos of the wedding on Facebook.
The new Mrs Howard accompanied her husband to Teesside Crown Court but did not enter the court room to l i sten to any evidence.
The retail worker wept uncontrollably after being informed of the verdict, and was ushered into a room with Howard.
Yesterday the judge told him he had been convicted on the ‘strongest possible evidence’.
Recorder Andrew Sutcliffe, QC, accused Howard of attempting to ‘humiliate and denigrate’ his victim by concocting a false defence. He described the attack as ‘calculated’.
Prosecutor Paul Cleasby said the woman was fully clothed in bed after a drinking session when Howard entered the room and forced himself on her. In her evidence, the victim said Howard warned her during the attack: ‘Don’t tell April.’
The next morning, she tried to call her boyfriend, contacted a rape crisis line and drove to the nearest hospital.
She said that when she got up, Howard had asked her: ‘Have you had a good time?’
Howard told police he never entered the guest room and denied having sex with the woman.
Yesterday the victim told the court how she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, has had to change jobs and rarely leaves the side of her family. She said she could no longer be ‘the fun-loving, bubbly person that I was’.
She said she suffered flashbacks, adding: ‘It sounds silly but I’m frightened someone will come and get me again, and noone will know. I had a good job that I loved, a strong relationship, a bright future, a plan for a house, and I’ve taken a huge step backwards.’
Paul Abrahams, defending, told the judge Howard had achieved much in his life until now.
‘He has the support still of his wife and his in-laws,’ he said. ‘It will have a massive impact on his family. I would ask Your Honour to consider it was an utter moment of madness.’