Starving Blaine battles breathing problems

With two days to go before completing his challenge, David Blaine was battling with palpitations and breathing difficulties today.

A spokesman for the magician described the 30-year-old as “not in the best of health”.

“David changes every couple of hours but he is suffering from breathing difficulties and severe palpitations,” he said.

“He also gets blurry vision. His goal is to aim for Sunday – that is only two-and-a-half days.

“He has been focusing on that all week and he has passed his final weekend, but there are still risks to his health.”

The illusionist appears to have remained in his glass box since he entered the box on September 5.

Now sporting a straggly beard and wild hair, Blaine spent the early morning huddled up against the cold.

Over the past 42 days he has spent time writing his diary, sleeping and waving to the almost-constant crowds below.

Sky One, which has been filming Blaine’s progress, said an estimated 250,000 people would have visited the site by the end of the stunt on Sunday.

He is expected to be released from his glass cell at 9.30pm on Sunday before a crowd of thousands.

“We will lower the box right down to the floor during the show,” the spokesman said. “It will then be tilted to the side and David will come out of the box.

“Whether he walks out or he has to be assisted, we will have to wait and see.

“He will then be put on a stretcher and taken off in an ambulance to a private hospital.”

In the immediate aftermath of his quest, Blaine will gradually build up his strength with mineral supplements and foodstuffs.

“He won’t be able to start eating properly for some period of time,” said the spokesman. “He could be in hospital for a few days or more than a week.”

It is thought the magician could take as long as six months to recover his muscle strength and be fully restored to fitness.

Nutrition expert Dr Adam Carey said all of Blaine’s muscles and vital organs would have reduced significantly during starvation.

Blaine’s time in the box has been peppered with incidents.

Businessman Stephen Charles Field, 38, from Godalming in Surrey, was fined for causing criminal damage to the illusionist’s water supply on September 16.

He admitted scaling a scaffolding tower before throwing a five-gallon plastic water container from the tower, ripping off the feeder pipe and breaking two taps in the process.

At the end of September, Paul McCartney was involved in a scuffle below the glass box when a photographer tried to take his picture.