Anything is Possible

by Hazel Flynn

  The sphere had not been designed for this kind of arrangement and we weren’t even sure it would fit. John went out to the dive centre to measure the tank and came back with the verdict: with precision placement we could get it in there, just. It was pure good fortune we hadn’t made it even slightly bigger because there was just a few centimetres clearance all around. That posed a couple of distinct challenges. One was, how could we film it when there was no room for camera operators? The other was, how could anyone reach me if something went wrong? In Anchored I was in sight the whole time and divers with regulators would have easily been able to get to me if I was in distress. In Water Trap and Breathless I could be clearly seen, and if something went horribly wrong John or Adam or one of the stage crew could smash the locks and pull me out. But the way we were proposing to do Dropped I would be out of direct sight and the only way to reach me would be through a locked hatch ten metres deep.

  We discussed the filming question with Rob and some of the other Seven Network people. Perhaps we could have a camera operator lying on the bottom of the tank shooting upwards and we could stop the sphere’s descent at eight metres or so, rather than ten? They ruled that out on the grounds that if the chains around the sphere broke it would drop down and crush the camera operator. We couldn’t argue with that, so having someone filming in the tank was out. The elephant in the room that everyone avoided mentioning was that if the chains did break the force would make the sphere rotate, leaving the escape hatch against the tank side or bottom, trapping me with absolutely no way out.

  The solution we came up with for filming was to install GoPro cameras inside the sphere wall plus two more on me, one strapped to my head and one to my chest. From Rob’s point of view it was far from perfect to have only static shots to choose from rather than a camera that could pan around and follow movement, but it was the only option. We put sixteen of them in there to give him as much material as possible. The GoPro signals fed back to iPads on the surface and with the bottom of the tank too far down to be seen from the top, this was the only way John and Adam would be able to see if I was okay. There really wasn’t a solution to the problem of the chains breaking — we just had to take every precaution to try to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Because of the change in plans from ocean to tank I ended up with less than a fortnight to rehearse. It was winter in Melbourne and the tank was unheated. The water was so cold I abandoned the idea of wearing just swim trunks and a vest, as I had at the Aquarium, in favour of a full wetsuit. I trained by lowering myself on a rope to the bottom of the tank, practising my breath-hold and getting used to the strange sensation of being so isolated down there. At the bottom of the tank there was the equivalent of two atmospheres crushing my lungs and putting pressure on my sinuses, and I was going to be down there handcuffed and chained inside the sphere, with little help if things went wrong.

  We couldn’t afford any setbacks but we got one anyway when the tank’s filter broke down and the water turned green. John, Ben, Adam and Adam’s brother-in-law Clinton put in a massive effort, spending two days and nights by the side of the pool, working in four-hour shifts to keep the specialised filter we’d brought in running continuously. Finally the problem was fixed but our already tight time-frame got even tighter, which meant I had to be in the tank for long stretches each day preparing. I was becoming exhausted and had a cold coming on. I thought I could push through but I was about to get a nasty reminder of the body’s limits.

  Cosentino family collection

  The night before filming was due to take place in front of an invited audience of fans we did one final test run. We began with me descending to the bottom without the sphere. That went fine except for a strange sensation every time I equalised my ears. Just like it does when you’re taking off or landing in a plane, pressure builds up on your eardrums when you’re diving to that kind of depth. You relieve the sensation by equalising the pressure on the inside and outside of the eardrum, which you do by holding your nostrils closed and blowing. Your ears pop and everything is fine until the pressure builds again.

  I couldn’t afford to lose any of the air I was holding, but my dive experts (two this time, because the stunt was so dangerous — Martin Owen and Brett Rapp — plus the owner of the facility, Paul) had assured me that the air was just being momentarily forced into my sinuses, it wasn’t actually leaving my body. Except on this descent every time I equalised I had the nagging feeling that I was losing air. I tried to ignore it by telling myself I was just imagining it. I came back up to the surface and said I was ready to do a run in the sphere. I got in, was shackled and cuffed, did my breathing preparation, gave the signal and Adam started the winch. There were lots of people there but no-one was watching the iPad feed because it was only a test run and everyone had other things to concentrate on: Adam was watching the winch timer, John was checking gear, someone else was capturing the general atmosphere on an iPhone camera and so on.

  I hadn’t gone down more than a metre and a half before a huge pressure started to build up inside my head. I picked the lock of my right handcuff and tried to equalise my ears but it didn’t work. The sphere had continued to descend and now I was below two metres and the pressure was becoming more and more intense. I’d never experienced anything like it. With the sphere continuing its descent I got the left handcuff off and tried again to equalise. This time I got the pop. The relief was instant but it lasted less than a second and in its place came excruciating pain in my right ear. It felt like someone was punching and stabbing me at the same time. The pain was so strong I felt sick to my stomach, and there was a separate, awful giddiness. The water being forced in through the sphere’s bottom grills was pushing at my legs, which were still shackled and connected to the chain running around my waist, which was making me feel even more disorientated. I could feel panic starting to build. I couldn’t think through the crushing pain and still have no idea how I managed to stop myself from gasping but instead held on to the precious breath that was keeping me alive.

  Everyone on the surface was still busy with things other than the iPads, but John, who was in his diving gear at the surface of the water, put his head under to check on me. All he could see was my outline. It wasn’t much to go on but his instinct told him something wasn’t right. He called out to Adam to stop the winch, jumped in the pool and dived down to get a better look through the top of the sphere. Meanwhile, operating mostly on desperate instinct, I had freed myself of the remaining locks. I pushed upwards and frantically felt around for the latch on the grill. Finally I felt it and shoved it up out of the way, in my hurry banging against it hard enough to knock the camera off my head. This was so unlike my usual calm that John now knew there was definitely something wrong. I kicked upwards with him beside me.

  As I got higher the pain eased from a sickeningly unbearable twelve out of ten to an ‘I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy’ nine out of ten. I broke through the surface and gulped air. John came up next to me and said, ‘You’re hurt, aren’t you?’ He pushed my hair aside and saw blood coming out of my ear. There was alarm on every face, especially my dive experts’. Bleeding from the ears is never a good sign, but when it happens during a dive it needs urgent medical attention. I refused the suggestion that we call an ambulance so John peeled off his wetsuit ready to drive me. I pulled myself up on the side but didn’t go any further. Everyone was telling me I had to get up and go right now but I just wouldn’t, or couldn’t.

  All I could think was, So much work, so much effort has gone into this from all these people and now it’s over. I’ve failed them. Not to mention all the fans who will turn up tomorrow. This is supposed to be the climax of one of the specials. We can’t replace it now, it’s too late and this is too big. And what about the money? What will Seven say about that? This time around Seven had agreed to cover all the production costs and between the construction of the sphere, the hire of the tank, the dive team and everything else, Dropped had cost $70,000. They�
�d been okay with that because it was going to produce some spectacular TV, but what now?

  These thoughts were running on a loop through my head while John, Adam, Rob, Martin and Brett tried to get me up and dressed. It took nearly forty-five minutes. I shuffled around on the edge but watching the footage later I saw that I always had at least one foot in the tank. I didn’t realise it at the time but some part of me thought that as long as I was still touching the water I didn’t have to admit defeat, that some miraculous way of saving the stunt might come to me.

  Cosentino family collection

  Finally I came to my senses and John drove me to the emergency department of the nearest hospital. The doctor confirmed what my dive experts suspected: my eardrum had ruptured. I found out later that spending as much time in the water as I had been leaves the ear constantly moist and open to infection, which can lead to a burst membrane. A ruptured eardrum is never good, but having it happen underwater was particularly concerning, the doctor said, because not only is water in the inner ear extremely painful, it carries the extra risk of a bacterial infection which can lead to permanent deafness or balance problems. Either of those things could cost me my career.

  The truth is that doing those escapes is when I feel most alive.

  He gave me antibiotics and something for the pain but there was nothing that could be done about the hollow whomping feeling inside my head. It was blood that had passed right through from one ear canal into the other and if I was lucky it would dry up within a few weeks. In no uncertain terms he gave me the news I’d been dreading: while the eardrum would most likely heal itself (although it might take up to three months to do so) I was not allowed to go back in the water for weeks. I couldn’t fly for a similar period and would have to cancel my upcoming corporate gigs.

  I felt terrible about what had happened and wanted to try to find a way to rescue the situation. Rob, Adam, John and I met with Grant Rule to discuss how to proceed. I sounded them out on waiting until I had the medical go-ahead and trying again on the stunt, so as not to waste all the time, money and effort that had gone into it, but they said no. I then suggested we make it part of the special, showing what had really happened. It was certainly dramatic and would help the audience understand that the stunts I was doing were very real and had the potential for me to suffer serious damage. Brad and Grant felt it would be too much of a downer and weren’t at all convinced we could put a good enough piece together from just the GoPro footage. But then Rob and I remembered the iPhone video that had been taken and when we checked, it had everything we needed, including the moment where John lifted my hair and saw the blood. We all agreed that it would work to have Dropped in there as the one that got away and that’s exactly how we presented it . . . although I always hoped against hope I might get the chance to try again.

  What had happened was sobering but it seemed to me a freak occurrence. Dad saw things differently. He’d let the Stabbed mishap pass without too much comment but this time he was really upset because he thought the whole situation had been an accident waiting to happen, the result of time-frames being squeezed too hard and me pushing myself too far. I understood his concern. It came from his love for me and I took it seriously.

  I agreed with Dad that I could and would be more careful but I knew there was no chance I was going to give up escape stunts. The truth is that doing those escapes is when I feel most alive. Succeeding in something so hard that requires so much dedication and training makes me feel as though I’m on my way to becoming superhuman. Not cape and tights superhuman, but distilled, hardened, forged in the fire. There’s a euphoric physical rush after a successful escape but it’s more than that. If I’m really honest about it, I guess I feel that the applause that follows one of these feats is completely earned.

  It’s a tricky thing to explain and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I don’t appreciate the applause I get for a stage show, because I do, very much. In live performance there is an alchemy that doesn’t happen anywhere else. Hugh Jackman, who knows a thing or two about magical moments onstage, calls it ‘rare moments of transcendence’. Talking about the magician he played in The Prestige, maybe my favourite film of all time, Jackman described ‘the magic of connection between a performer and the audience. Something transformative can happen, something that is greater than the sum of its parts can happen in that connection’.

  That’s exactly right and those times, shared between audience and performer, are joyful and energising. But the feeling I have during and after a successful escape is something else. It’s more internal and more primal. It’s that I’ve done something very few other people on the planet can do. I’ve pushed myself physically and mentally far beyond what seems possible and I’ve survived. Physically there’s an enormous, electrifying endorphin rush and mentally there’s a feeling of triumphant vindication: Look what I’ve achieved! I’ve earned this moment; I’ve justified my existence.

  Pierre Baroni

  The danger comes when you chase that feeling too far, when you ignore the red flags and go from taking carefully calculated risks to taking wild chances. That’s when people get hurt or killed. Pushing things too far is what Dad and, to a lesser extent, Mum and Adam were worried about. The recent run of injuries had also left John concerned; however, as the person in the family who comes closest to sharing my attitude about pushing the limits, it was easier for him to accept my choices.

  ‘Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.’ — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  The next big stunt, ‘Point Blank’, confirmed to Dad that he had reason to fear. I’d decided to up the ante with three separate, escalating threats. The equipment we designed and had built was huge. The focal point was an upright wooden Celtic cross — a cross larger than me, framed by an imposing circle — mounted on a raised platform. Standing against the cross I was locked into the crucifix position, my hands, feet and waist immobilised by steel bands sealed with padlocks. Three metres in front of me four crossbows were arrayed horizontally. Above each of my upper arms was a bear trap with fierce steel teeth. Finally, twenty-two metal spikes were recessed into the cross behind my back.

  The trigger was a pressure release under a large metal bucket. To begin the stunt John would turn the tap on a wooden wine cask. Wine flowed from the cask down a sluice to the hanging bucket. When it reached critical mass the bucket dropped onto a release button, triggering the two crossbows and the bear trap on my right side. The steel arrows hit hard enough to penetrate deep into the wooden cross and the bear trap closed with enough force to easily break bones. If I hadn’t already freed my arm and twisted that half of my body to the other side I was going to get seriously maimed. But that was only the beginning.

  After the first arrows fired, the entire cross began to rotate, taking me upside down and round to upright again as I frantically tried to free my left arm before the next two arrows and the remaining bear trap deployed. Having reached the top, the cross would go through another rotation. I had to free my waist and feet and jump off before it reached the top again, because that’s when the twenty-two spikes punched out with enough force to break my spine. If it sounds crazy that’s because everything about it was crazy, right down to the fact that I had to undo the first padlock using the fingers of one hand immobilised at the wrist.

  Designing Point Blank my focus had been on how spectacular the escape would look, but seeing it set up for the first time was sobering. We did a radar speed check on the arrows: they were flying at 108 km/h, which meant nine one-hundredths of a second from the time of release to impact. If I lost focus for even a moment I was gone. Once the device was set in motion it couldn’t be stopped and no-one could risk stepping in front of the force of the arrows to help me.

  The Seven Network had initially been okay with the stunt provided we met some very strict conditions, including having an armourer on hand at all times. These were deadly weapons and we were required to follow the same protocol as
if they’d been guns. Among other things the armourer had to ensure that once the bows were loaded no-one came within the path of the arrows . . . except me, of course.

  But there were only two and a half weeks between the Dropped incident and the filming date for Point Blank and with me injured the Seven executives got cold feet. They were understandably concerned about me being well enough to go ahead, especially given that I had to work with split-second timing upside down so soon after suffering middle and inner ear damage. (My personal insurance premium was soaring with every hospital visit.) Only when I agreed to provide a special medical certificate did they give it the go-ahead.

  Rehearsal was critical and it went off faultlessly. A full rotation took thirty-three seconds, giving me enough time to get out just as long as nothing went wrong. I got my timing down to the point where I felt as secure as it was possible to feel. We shot the stunt at a huge warehouse down on the water at Melbourne’s Docklands live in front of an invited audience of fans. But on the night, despite all the rehearsals, the mechanism went wrong.

  I got my first hand free with microseconds to spare. Despite dropping the pick on the first rotation, I managed to grasp it as I passed, upside down, from the spot where it had fallen. I got my left hand out too, just in time. But the cross over-rotated, so that instead of being fully upright when the crossbows fired, it was slightly past the vertical. One of the arrows went deep into the wood where my arm had been a moment before but the other hit the metal edging on the cross and ricocheted off with huge force, missing my face by millimetres.

  Even though I was shaken, I managed to pick the locks on my waist and feet in time to jump down before the spikes shot out. Rob and the camera operators, not initially realising how close a call I’d had, gave me the big thumbs up, so I knew they had what they needed. I went over to spend time with the fans and thank them all for coming out on a freezing winter’s night.