Escape Artist Skydives In Casket From 14,500 Feet

UPDATED: 8/6/2013 6:34 p.m.

OTTAWA, Ill. (CBS/AP) -- An escape artist has parachuted safely to the ground after freeing himself from handcuffs and a locked coffin while it was falling from 14,500 feet in the air.

Anthony Martin waved to a crowd after landing softly Tuesday in a field in Serena, Ill., about 70 miles southwest of Chicago.

He says after freeing himself, he watched the box plummet to the ground. He first performed the stunt 25 years ago.

The 47-year-old Wisconsin man was locked in the casket with his hands cuffed to a belt and his right arm chained to the inside of the box.

Locksmith Spiro Centsias recombinated the lock.

"We changed the combination so that this key which is sealed in the envelope will no longer work the lock," said Ventsias.

Two skydivers held the outside of the box to help steady it as Martin tried to escape from it.

And he's quick to insist, he's no fake.

Martin said his father shattered his early fascination with magic when he explained the trickery behind a floating pen illusion. So at age 6, he resolved to find a more respectable means of impressing an audience and began studying the art of escape.

"I thought that skill and knowledge could surpass trickery and magic," he said.

Martin took locks apart until he understood how the mechanisms operate and are put together.

"At 10 I had pretty much started to specialize in escapes," Martin says. "By the time I was 13, the sheriff was locking me in his handcuffs. And I was getting out."

Jumping from a raft into a lake at age 11 -- naturally, with his hands cuffed behind his back -- whet Martin's appetite for high risk escapes.

So in February 1990, he performed his most dangerous water stunt, in which he was locked in a cage and lowered through a hole in the ice and into the frigid water at a Wisconsin quarry. It took him one minute and 45 seconds to emerge.

"It was very, very cold," Martin said. "It doesn't take long for your fingers, even with gloves, to get numb and lose effectiveness ... you have to work very quickly."

Locksmith Robert Oestreich was there then.

"The first time he did it, it was easier. He had easier locks and I told him it was nuts then," said Oesterich.

Martin, who is also a minister, credits a lot more than his skills as a locksmith.

"God has given me certain skills and I use those kills for his glory. This escape will be hard to top," said Martin.

Martin will use the stunt to promote his book which will also promote his ministry and evangelism.

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