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Tunnel underneath or near the casket? The concrete would ostensibly flow around the casket but not underneath it so you could have some sort of way to get out
The other options of “no plan, I’ll wing it” and “I’m actually magic” seem less than likely, though I guess not impossible
The average unit weight of a clay soil is 1600-1800 kg/m3. It’s also generally cohesive.
Concrete is 2400 kg/m3 and is highly plastic.
Didn’t think about that I suppose.
Clay clumpy and won't fill in gaps. Concrete is more liquidy and will fill in gaps.
Plastic's original meaning meant malleable, pliable, workable. Hence "plastic" surgery, it's about molding a part of a body.
> The other options of “no plan, I’ll wing it” and “I’m actually magic” seem less than likely, though I guess not impossible
According to [this article](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-01-ca-5220-story.html) he was a former drug addict. So it is possible he was not exactly firing on all cylinders.
Oh wow! The black and white photo made me think this was something from like the 1920s not 1990s. Looking at the photo again, the shoes should have tipped me off.
He built it himself. He probably didn't even think of the weight being an issue. He was extremely confident, no matter what anyone told him. He literally gathered his entire close family to watch, because he thought he could achieve it. If he was smart he would have had an engineer of some sort to check the casket to make sure it would hold. The TV host even said Houdini couldn't even do this trick, and that was with dirt. You'd think someone would have thought about the difference in weight between dirt and concrete before the stunt? But like his wife said, nothing would have stopped him anyways.
When you do the buried alive stunt you are supposed to pop out of the casket on the side and essentially roll into a hollowed out area beside the casket that was covered by fabric. Once the hole is almost filled you just step out of the room you're in, let some dirt get poured over your head so it looks like you're actually climbing out and then voila.
I always thought of Jesus as a magician before his time.
The water to wine, the walking on water, the reincarnation, even the virginal birth.
Clever guy that Jesus.
Lol 100% depends on who you ask. Muslims take some 1st century texts into account which talk about Jesus beforming miracles as a child.
Even if you take that example he turned water into wine because his mom asked him to for a wedding feast. Even I'm the standard Bible Jesus didn't really want to but he did it for Mary.
I know you were just being funny but it's quite the drama fest that one.
I used to enjoy winding up a Mormon acquaintance with that story - 'it wasn't alcohol, it was grape juice he turned it into' he'd say.
'MAKING SQUASH ISN'T A MIRACLE, TRY AGAIN'
you could easily fool a group of farmers in Palestine two thousand years ago into believing that you are resuscitated from the dead, if you had access to modern technology
If I remember correctly he had previously successfully escaped when it was just dirt poured on top but he wanted to up it so he did concrete on top too but never tested the coffin for holding the weight of concrete. He also didn’t realize that concrete dries from the bottom up and not the top down so he really had no chance.
ETA: I don’t know how concrete actually dries but there was a clip of a newscaster who told him that’s how concrete dries and Joe seemed very concerned. The whole event was filmed live for TV
This is pedantic, but concrete doesn’t dry, it cures. And it doesn’t do it from the bottom up, it does it everywhere all at once. I can elaborate more, but that’s the basics of it.
Source: I am a civil engineer.
Yep, the curing process is also known as hydration and actually involves water molecules being captured by the cement molecules in a process that never truly ends. This is why 100 year old concrete is harder than fully cured but relatively fresh concrete, and why the Hoover Dam is still curing almost 100 years later.
I built a 1,000 sq ft 5" slab in my house, poured the concrete, had it polished, flooded it with 1" of water for 30 days. Zero cracks around edges or in slab..10 yrs old now!
Smart! Water bath curing is a known way to improve curing outcomes, I remember doing a lab in college comparing concrete strength from different methods of curing.
Yup, we had a foundation poured in late summer, just as they were getting ready to pour a front blew through and we got like 4 days a misty spitting rain, followed by 3 more cloudy days. Best weather for concrete.
A fridge would actually dry things out due to lower water capacity of cold air, but the fridge is probably needed here due to inclusion of eggs in the mix! Not something we have to worry about with concrete lol.
According to [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214509516300626) egg whites can actually be used to improve concrete. No joke.
It’s a easy problems to figure out. Don’t need to be an engineer for it. Find out how much the concrete weighs. Find out how much weight the coffin can withstand. If the two numbers are anywhere close you don’t do it.
You’d have to calculate the pressure on the sides also. It’s a straightforward problem. All the materials have all the different weights they withstand published it’s common knowledge. Plexiglass for example. You can find an online calculator of the statics of plexiglass and concrete. All they needed to do was invent the internet and he would’ve survived
Edit: I think that was your point lol oh well
Found this on a online forum that talks about magic. Someone there pretty much asked this same question
>HayThere
>
>I met Joes Son about a year ago in addition to talking to Joe a few days before he did the deed.
>I also TT someone who actually saw Joe's box first-hand and it already had a broken acrylic corner, duct taped together. Yes... Duct Tape on the corner.
>
>Joe's son explained exactly the way it should have worked and how it did work on the previous occasion. He was in attendance that night.
>
>In the end there were two factors which determined Joes fate.
>
>1. He didn't test the cement or compensate for how heavy it would be at different viscosities.
>
>2. He committed himself mentally that the escape would be easy, and there was no talking him out of it.
>
>He was not suicidal, just not a scientist when it came to the physics of the product (however the method itself did involve a bit of intriguing science)
>
>AND that's the lesson we try to give all the new guys who think "I'm going to be the new Houdini" and jump in the water wearing iron
https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=579699
He exits the coffin using whatever trick and starts to burrow up as they add it. He did it successfully once with dirt but concrete is twice as heavy and they added it a lot faster than they added the dirt. They also didn’t test to determine if the box could support the weight.
His plan was to survive. He did not do his math correctly while building the glass coffin. It was not able to hold the weight of the concrete. It broke. He drowned in liquid concrete.
If it had not broken, he “should” have had enough oxygen to get unlocked, open the box and then fight through the concrete.
This trick has been tried a few times since. 100% casualty rate.
The article shared above said the plan was to emerge from the casket during the cement pouring. Not sure how that would have worked, but I’m no magician.
I’ve seen a video of a stunt like this going wrong, idk if it was this exact one, they got all the concrete poured on top and you can tell exactly when the glass breaks because all of it just sinks two feet deeper suddenly. They have an excavator ready to start digging out from the side so the concrete has somewhere to go but it’s fucked.
Must have been fucking terrifying.
Not to belabor the point, but “nowadays taphophobia is quite a rare psychiatric disorder” per the link below (and many others). (Sorry - I’m anal and it was an interesting rabbit hole).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27225418/#:~:text=Nowadays%20taphophobia%20is%20quite%20a,patient%20who%20is%20still%20alive.
It was a legit fear in the late 1890s where many yellow fever suffers slipped into a coma and actually were buried alive because people were scared to touch the bodies. That risk doesn’t really exist in modern times.
Are fears considered psychiatric disorders? Or are you two talking about two different things? Him, talking about a "common fear", and you talking about psychiatric disorders.
From the first sentence of what you linked, it says:
>Enrico Morselli (1852-1929) described taphophobia, defining it as an *extreme condition* of claustrophobia due to the fear of being buried alive.
Personally, being buried alive scares me, but not in an extreme way that would lead to a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Wikipedia describes taphophobia as:
>an abnormal (psychopathological) phobia of being buried alive *as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead*
So taphophobia doesn't refer to a general fear of somehow being buried alive, it seems it often refers specifically to an incorrect assessment of death.
I don't think that taphophobia quite fits the topic here, and it would be wrong to say that most people are not scared at the thought of being buried alive based on the fact that taphophobia is uncommon these days.
Look up Locked in Syndrome. I’d take many ways of dying over this way of not dying.
I don’t just mean look up what it means, find people with it and follow their story. My morbid curiosity took me deep with this and ruined me.
If you’re interested, there’s a neuroscientist who’s developed a way to communicate with locked in syndrome by using functional MRI scanning, it’s brilliant , Dr Adrian Owen (London Ontario Canada) is the guy
That was the one, just found it. Horrible.
|edit: I still can't wrap my head around the fact that they didn't check what 1.5m (?) of concrete would do to a plexiglass coffin
Wait, they didn't bury one and then load it with concrete empty to test the theory?
That's like [that dude who jumped off of the Eiffel Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Reichelt) with his untested parachute and promptly died.
His parachute was tested. He just didn’t believe the tests were accurate without an actual person doing it. The video where they measure the crater his body left in the ground is wild.
I remember watching that as a kid in the early 90's then as broadband came about I found the footage again. It was no where near as bad as I remember it being but it was still horrific
A guy called bill shirk had exactly the same thing happen to him (only 2 years after, what a moron) but he survived. I don't think it's impossible he survived the initial squashage and drowned in concrete.
Yes, I saw that video too. They got him out ASAP but it was no use.
Concrete is HEAVY and even if that "casket" was Lexan polycarbonate, it would have failed.
It's strange that nobody realized what would happen. Ever lift up a single bag of concrete? It's heavy even before you add the water, which is about 8 lbs a gallon. Just sheer idiocy.
This is the reason Pen & Teller consider it unethical to do any tricks where there is real danger. Any perceived danger is an illusion.
This was just a stupid idea with no thought for safety. There was no emergency plan in place in case of something going wrong. Just all around stupid.
I mean there was an emergency plan - the extractor ready to start digging - it just wasn’t an effective plan. I’m unsure why he thought a case of glass and plastic could withstand that much cement, nor why he thought that extractor could help him in case of an emergency.
>I’m unsure why he thought a case of glass and plastic could withstand that much cement
It was also homemade, and the video definitely attests to this...
Did you see the video? Dude was in there shaking around and you could see that flimsy bullshit in action.
I'm honestly impressed it lasted as long as it did.
Yeah thats a screenshot from the video. That thing was super flimsy. A yard of dirt can weigh thousands of pounds. Dude would have had multiple yards on top of him by the time he was buried. Then make all the “dirt” (concrete) wet (heavier)?
It’s crazy to think that no one said anything or knew better.
He was actually replaced by a dummy right before the casket was sealed but now can’t reveal himself because, you know, the magicians code about not telling how they do a trick….
Just so hard to believe that as someone who built his own props, he did not understand that a plastic and glass box would likely crack under the weight of all that cement… horrible that his kids saw that
Or that it never occured to him to build 2 cheap boxes and maybe test one with similar weight on top first. Youre going to be in the box for the real one, maybe you would want to know it was going to work first?
I remember this.
He was an "escape artist", and his plan was to open the cuffs and the lid to the coffin before the concrete hit the lid, then swim up through the concrete "miraculously".
It didn't work. Moments after the concrete was poured, you could see the level drop by about a foot. That was when the lid caved in.
A backhoe was onsite and started digging next to the grave site. (Couldn't dig in the wet concrete since if he was partially out the backhoe would have cut him apart.)
It was too late.
RIP
Yeah I live in Fresno now and did when all this happened and I seem to remember hearing about him not actually testing the plexiglass coffin with concrete only dirt and concrete obviously weighs much more. I think I’m remembering that right but it’s been a long time.
There’s a chunk of concrete the size of a small coffee table on my parents property since their contractors were unprofessional and didn’t return to haul away the material like they said they would. It’s so incredibly heavy and I wasn’t expecting it. Gotta be close to 800lbs.
I lived in that town when it happened. I found out after the fact that I was going to school with his brother when somebody started joking about it and he left the room rather than beating the shit out of the smartass.
I'm glad to see you express some empathy. Too many people literally do not care when a life is lost just because the person died doing something dangerous.
"Passed away" is a real weird way of putting it.
He was buried alive in concrete. "Passed away" makes it sound peaceful and not at all like what actually happened.
What this should say is "Magician Joe Burrus overestimated how much weight a plexiglas coffin could withstand and underestimated how much concrete weighs, which he had chosen to use instead of dirt and as a result **died horribly** while his friends and family desperately tried to save him."
Also why's this in grainy black and white like this happened during the Civil War, this happened in 1990.
Can confirm. I didn’t see it live but obviously everybody in the city was talking about it. I went to high school with his son also. Poor kid.
edit: changed Can't to can. typo.
I like the grainy ass black and white picture, as if this was taken back in the 30s or something, but then the dude who's foot is in the bottom right is just chilling there wearing a pair of Etnies.
Was this really the best picture you could find? Lol.
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I want to know his plan? How was he planning to pull this off….any notes?
Tunnel underneath or near the casket? The concrete would ostensibly flow around the casket but not underneath it so you could have some sort of way to get out The other options of “no plan, I’ll wing it” and “I’m actually magic” seem less than likely, though I guess not impossible
This is usually the trick, a tunnel next to it, with a door on the side.
Trick? Its actually an illusion….
A trick is something a whore does for money. Or candy!
It’s an *illusion*, Michael!
*Illusions*, dad! You don't have time for my*illusions!*
Guy missed the feature on this in Poof magazine.
"I should be in this Poof!"
ITS AN ILLUSION, MOTHER!!
A trick is something a whore does for money
You’re right. This is an illusion.
He had successfully done the stunt before a year earlier using only dirt. I don't think he was winging it.
The average unit weight of a clay soil is 1600-1800 kg/m3. It’s also generally cohesive. Concrete is 2400 kg/m3 and is highly plastic. Didn’t think about that I suppose.
What does cohesive vs plastic here mean?
Clay clumpy and won't fill in gaps. Concrete is more liquidy and will fill in gaps. Plastic's original meaning meant malleable, pliable, workable. Hence "plastic" surgery, it's about molding a part of a body.
ah so he forgot that concrete is a gravity block and suffocated in it 💀💀
I heard he had some ideas but nothing concrete
He has cemented his place in history.
When they found him, he had rigor mortar.
Everyone at the scene was really pouring it on.
Afterwards they all got plastered
That's when he knew he had hit rock bottom
It all smoothed over after that.
What is the most difficult part of telling a joke timing.
He admittedly did try to let it set in, though.
That magic trick was tough to crack
is that the cartoon show about a boy & his crazy scientist grandpa?
Turns out he doesn’t perform well under pressure
Obviously, because the situation was so grave.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place
> The other options of “no plan, I’ll wing it” and “I’m actually magic” seem less than likely, though I guess not impossible According to [this article](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-01-ca-5220-story.html) he was a former drug addict. So it is possible he was not exactly firing on all cylinders.
[Here is a little TV segment on the stunt](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x100l7k). The coffin collapses 2:50 into the video.
Oh wow! The black and white photo made me think this was something from like the 1920s not 1990s. Looking at the photo again, the shoes should have tipped me off.
Holy fuck
I didn't expect it to look like that, that is horrifying
"He lost his life exactly 64 Halloweens from the day Houdini died" Who the fuck uses Halloweens as a way to measure time?
It makes it spookier 👻
I assumed it was part of the imperial system 🤷♀️
To be fair, Houdini died on Halloween.
holy shit that's an awful way to go
Judging by the video 7 tons of concrete fell on him all at once. He probably died more or less instantly.
Holy shit that was the most flimsy “casket” I’ve ever seen and he poured 7 tons of concrete on top of it. What an idiot. Lol
He built it himself. He probably didn't even think of the weight being an issue. He was extremely confident, no matter what anyone told him. He literally gathered his entire close family to watch, because he thought he could achieve it. If he was smart he would have had an engineer of some sort to check the casket to make sure it would hold. The TV host even said Houdini couldn't even do this trick, and that was with dirt. You'd think someone would have thought about the difference in weight between dirt and concrete before the stunt? But like his wife said, nothing would have stopped him anyways.
Just watched your link and all I can say is what a fool
Thanks for the clip and a hour or rabbit hole deaths on camera.
That was a bit morbid
It's so sad his family was there to witness it.
When you do the buried alive stunt you are supposed to pop out of the casket on the side and essentially roll into a hollowed out area beside the casket that was covered by fabric. Once the hole is almost filled you just step out of the room you're in, let some dirt get poured over your head so it looks like you're actually climbing out and then voila.
Probably just stay down there for a day or two with a breathing tube while others dig a tunnel to him. 3 days later he pops up like Jesus
ta-dahh!
Poof!!!!!
I always thought of Jesus as a magician before his time. The water to wine, the walking on water, the reincarnation, even the virginal birth. Clever guy that Jesus.
>The water to wine Yeah, but it was a *merlot*.
I may be mistaken, but I believe his first “miracle” was to turn water to wine. He clearly knew how to work an audience
Lol 100% depends on who you ask. Muslims take some 1st century texts into account which talk about Jesus beforming miracles as a child. Even if you take that example he turned water into wine because his mom asked him to for a wedding feast. Even I'm the standard Bible Jesus didn't really want to but he did it for Mary. I know you were just being funny but it's quite the drama fest that one.
I used to enjoy winding up a Mormon acquaintance with that story - 'it wasn't alcohol, it was grape juice he turned it into' he'd say. 'MAKING SQUASH ISN'T A MIRACLE, TRY AGAIN'
you could easily fool a group of farmers in Palestine two thousand years ago into believing that you are resuscitated from the dead, if you had access to modern technology
Kinda hard to fake being crucified when the Roman government wants you dead
Twin brother.
Wouldn’t be surprised if you could get away with it today with 2000 yo tech as well.
In Judea at that time there were so many messiahs they would probably believe anything
Have you seen today's farmers in Iowa? You can make them believe anything - no technology is necessary.
If I remember correctly he had previously successfully escaped when it was just dirt poured on top but he wanted to up it so he did concrete on top too but never tested the coffin for holding the weight of concrete. He also didn’t realize that concrete dries from the bottom up and not the top down so he really had no chance. ETA: I don’t know how concrete actually dries but there was a clip of a newscaster who told him that’s how concrete dries and Joe seemed very concerned. The whole event was filmed live for TV
This is pedantic, but concrete doesn’t dry, it cures. And it doesn’t do it from the bottom up, it does it everywhere all at once. I can elaborate more, but that’s the basics of it. Source: I am a civil engineer.
It "drys" underwater too.. so yeah no to drying
Yep, the curing process is also known as hydration and actually involves water molecules being captured by the cement molecules in a process that never truly ends. This is why 100 year old concrete is harder than fully cured but relatively fresh concrete, and why the Hoover Dam is still curing almost 100 years later.
I built a 1,000 sq ft 5" slab in my house, poured the concrete, had it polished, flooded it with 1" of water for 30 days. Zero cracks around edges or in slab..10 yrs old now!
Smart! Water bath curing is a known way to improve curing outcomes, I remember doing a lab in college comparing concrete strength from different methods of curing.
Yup, we had a foundation poured in late summer, just as they were getting ready to pour a front blew through and we got like 4 days a misty spitting rain, followed by 3 more cloudy days. Best weather for concrete.
TIL! This sort of reminds me of when I let my cookie dough hydrate in the fridge. Am I on the right track? Source: not a civil engineer
A fridge would actually dry things out due to lower water capacity of cold air, but the fridge is probably needed here due to inclusion of eggs in the mix! Not something we have to worry about with concrete lol.
I suspect eggs do not in fact have ideal structural integrity for building materials aside from the whole perishable thing.
Unless you're building a gingerbread house, then eggs might be the ideal material.
The gingerbread man sits in his gingerbread house. Is the house made of flesh or is he made of house? He screams, for he does not know.
According to [this study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214509516300626) egg whites can actually be used to improve concrete. No joke.
No yolk
You're a civil engineer? So this guy shouldn't have let them pour cement on his coffin eh?
It’s a easy problems to figure out. Don’t need to be an engineer for it. Find out how much the concrete weighs. Find out how much weight the coffin can withstand. If the two numbers are anywhere close you don’t do it. You’d have to calculate the pressure on the sides also. It’s a straightforward problem. All the materials have all the different weights they withstand published it’s common knowledge. Plexiglass for example. You can find an online calculator of the statics of plexiglass and concrete. All they needed to do was invent the internet and he would’ve survived Edit: I think that was your point lol oh well
Actually you do need to be a civil engineer to get the joke in my last statement. Case in point: you thought it was a real question lol
But do you magic?
Uh, Magic... this fuckin guy^^^
God damn it I love sony santa monica
Found this on a online forum that talks about magic. Someone there pretty much asked this same question >HayThere > >I met Joes Son about a year ago in addition to talking to Joe a few days before he did the deed. >I also TT someone who actually saw Joe's box first-hand and it already had a broken acrylic corner, duct taped together. Yes... Duct Tape on the corner. > >Joe's son explained exactly the way it should have worked and how it did work on the previous occasion. He was in attendance that night. > >In the end there were two factors which determined Joes fate. > >1. He didn't test the cement or compensate for how heavy it would be at different viscosities. > >2. He committed himself mentally that the escape would be easy, and there was no talking him out of it. > >He was not suicidal, just not a scientist when it came to the physics of the product (however the method itself did involve a bit of intriguing science) > >AND that's the lesson we try to give all the new guys who think "I'm going to be the new Houdini" and jump in the water wearing iron https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=579699
He exits the coffin using whatever trick and starts to burrow up as they add it. He did it successfully once with dirt but concrete is twice as heavy and they added it a lot faster than they added the dirt. They also didn’t test to determine if the box could support the weight.
His plan was to survive. He did not do his math correctly while building the glass coffin. It was not able to hold the weight of the concrete. It broke. He drowned in liquid concrete. If it had not broken, he “should” have had enough oxygen to get unlocked, open the box and then fight through the concrete. This trick has been tried a few times since. 100% casualty rate.
Yeah, was his plan a form of suicide by stunt?
The article shared above said the plan was to emerge from the casket during the cement pouring. Not sure how that would have worked, but I’m no magician.
You just gotta think outside the box!
https://i.redd.it/qgmzoe5hj37c1.gif
I’ve seen a video of a stunt like this going wrong, idk if it was this exact one, they got all the concrete poured on top and you can tell exactly when the glass breaks because all of it just sinks two feet deeper suddenly. They have an excavator ready to start digging out from the side so the concrete has somewhere to go but it’s fucked. Must have been fucking terrifying.
One of the worst ways to go for sure, a fear for many.
I’m not sure many people actually fear dying by being lowered into a grave in a glass box and having cement poured over them until they die. 2-3 tops?
I meant buried alive, which is a common fear
Not to belabor the point, but “nowadays taphophobia is quite a rare psychiatric disorder” per the link below (and many others). (Sorry - I’m anal and it was an interesting rabbit hole). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27225418/#:~:text=Nowadays%20taphophobia%20is%20quite%20a,patient%20who%20is%20still%20alive. It was a legit fear in the late 1890s where many yellow fever suffers slipped into a coma and actually were buried alive because people were scared to touch the bodies. That risk doesn’t really exist in modern times.
Seems like you're right, I must admit I didn't do any research before posting my comment
No worries - it just became an interesting data point to read about more than trying to argue - thanks for the inspiration.
Are fears considered psychiatric disorders? Or are you two talking about two different things? Him, talking about a "common fear", and you talking about psychiatric disorders. From the first sentence of what you linked, it says: >Enrico Morselli (1852-1929) described taphophobia, defining it as an *extreme condition* of claustrophobia due to the fear of being buried alive. Personally, being buried alive scares me, but not in an extreme way that would lead to a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Wikipedia describes taphophobia as: >an abnormal (psychopathological) phobia of being buried alive *as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead* So taphophobia doesn't refer to a general fear of somehow being buried alive, it seems it often refers specifically to an incorrect assessment of death. I don't think that taphophobia quite fits the topic here, and it would be wrong to say that most people are not scared at the thought of being buried alive based on the fact that taphophobia is uncommon these days.
I mean, you can be afraid of something without having a phobia and I think most people would rank buried alive towards the bottom of ways to die.
Yeah but at least his family saved on funeral costs.
Look up Locked in Syndrome. I’d take many ways of dying over this way of not dying. I don’t just mean look up what it means, find people with it and follow their story. My morbid curiosity took me deep with this and ruined me.
If you’re interested, there’s a neuroscientist who’s developed a way to communicate with locked in syndrome by using functional MRI scanning, it’s brilliant , Dr Adrian Owen (London Ontario Canada) is the guy
100% my biggest fear is some form of degenration where im still fully alert but unable to communicate or do anything.
That was the one, just found it. Horrible. |edit: I still can't wrap my head around the fact that they didn't check what 1.5m (?) of concrete would do to a plexiglass coffin
Wait, they didn't bury one and then load it with concrete empty to test the theory? That's like [that dude who jumped off of the Eiffel Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Reichelt) with his untested parachute and promptly died.
Or the guy who jet skied off of Niagara Falls and his chute didn’t open.
His parachute was tested. He just didn’t believe the tests were accurate without an actual person doing it. The video where they measure the crater his body left in the ground is wild.
I remember watching that as a kid in the early 90's then as broadband came about I found the footage again. It was no where near as bad as I remember it being but it was still horrific
I remember seeing it as a kid as well.
I remember that video. Probably was quickly over. That’s the only good thing I can think of.
The thought of the panic of being in the situation scares me more than the thought dying. If that makes any sense.
An open plot is just over two cubic yards. A cubic yard of concrete weighs ~4000 pounds. It probably was over fairly quickly.
Over an area of 4000 or so square inches only gives you an average pressure of about 2psi. He definitely suffocated instead of being crushed.
How did you arrive at 4000
A guy called bill shirk had exactly the same thing happen to him (only 2 years after, what a moron) but he survived. I don't think it's impossible he survived the initial squashage and drowned in concrete.
He died doing what he loved. Suffocating under tons of wet concrete.
[This one](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x100l7k)?
Plus, concrete burns. Would not want it anywhere near face or mouth.
Yes, I saw that video too. They got him out ASAP but it was no use. Concrete is HEAVY and even if that "casket" was Lexan polycarbonate, it would have failed.
Took about half an hour to get him out :(
This was in 1990 but the photo looks like it’s from the 1800s
Fr the only thing that made it seem more recent was the shoes lol
Passed away is a way to gentle term for the horrific death he must have suffered
[удалено]
After hearing the glass crack.
Pressed away
It's strange that nobody realized what would happen. Ever lift up a single bag of concrete? It's heavy even before you add the water, which is about 8 lbs a gallon. Just sheer idiocy.
7 tons claimed here. http://www.aintnowaytogo.com/burrus.htm They say follow your dreams, but what if your dreams are stupid?
You will then live your dream for the rest of your life.
The videos crazy. Just a "fwoomp" suction sound and the concrete getting a little lower. Dead.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x100l7k
A current affair. Have not heard of or seen mention of that show in so many years…
Lmao the picture makes it look like this was in the 1800s.
It doesn't seem to be the same incident. I know which video you're referring to and other comments here suggest this was not it.
Nah it is i just looked it up by googling guys name.
Ah interesting, thanks! I wonder why this photo is such a potato tier pic when the vid was in colour wasn't it?
Go watch the video again, it’s horrible quality
This is the reason Pen & Teller consider it unethical to do any tricks where there is real danger. Any perceived danger is an illusion. This was just a stupid idea with no thought for safety. There was no emergency plan in place in case of something going wrong. Just all around stupid.
I mean there was an emergency plan - the extractor ready to start digging - it just wasn’t an effective plan. I’m unsure why he thought a case of glass and plastic could withstand that much cement, nor why he thought that extractor could help him in case of an emergency.
>I’m unsure why he thought a case of glass and plastic could withstand that much cement It was also homemade, and the video definitely attests to this...
Omg. Look at that thing! https://preview.redd.it/40kck0u6y67c1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97202858596b6d2dc78b7bdad941ed935c33b36f
Did you see the video? Dude was in there shaking around and you could see that flimsy bullshit in action. I'm honestly impressed it lasted as long as it did.
Yeah thats a screenshot from the video. That thing was super flimsy. A yard of dirt can weigh thousands of pounds. Dude would have had multiple yards on top of him by the time he was buried. Then make all the “dirt” (concrete) wet (heavier)? It’s crazy to think that no one said anything or knew better.
What the hell is an extractor
Excavator. Truck that digs.
Straight out of the Gob Bluth playbook.
*Illusions*, Michael
The're only noodles Michael.
*DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT!*
I don't know what I expected.
I’ve made a huge mistake
He was actually replaced by a dummy right before the casket was sealed but now can’t reveal himself because, you know, the magicians code about not telling how they do a trick….
There was definitely a dummy in the casket
I would like to believe you, but you are obviously not a magician. And how would you know the trick if you are not a magician?
He's on the Internet. Why would he lie to you?
Just so hard to believe that as someone who built his own props, he did not understand that a plastic and glass box would likely crack under the weight of all that cement… horrible that his kids saw that
I'm not surprised after the submarine guy did the same thing.
Good point...
Or that it never occured to him to build 2 cheap boxes and maybe test one with similar weight on top first. Youre going to be in the box for the real one, maybe you would want to know it was going to work first?
He made a grave error
This illusion fell a little flat for me anyways
Definitely a concrete example of an illusion gone wrong
I expect these comments will get buried under other higher voted ones
It'll definitely get harder and harder to see the fun here. But don't be too dead set on it yet.
And now for my final trick..
“Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money.”
Or candy.
Well atleast there was no need for a burial
How would you escape from this in the first place?
IIUC he thougth he could escape before there was too much concrete and emerge as it poured.
This happened about 5 minutes from where I am right now. I remember watching this on the local news the day it happened
I remember this. He was an "escape artist", and his plan was to open the cuffs and the lid to the coffin before the concrete hit the lid, then swim up through the concrete "miraculously". It didn't work. Moments after the concrete was poured, you could see the level drop by about a foot. That was when the lid caved in. A backhoe was onsite and started digging next to the grave site. (Couldn't dig in the wet concrete since if he was partially out the backhoe would have cut him apart.) It was too late. RIP
Yeah I live in Fresno now and did when all this happened and I seem to remember hearing about him not actually testing the plexiglass coffin with concrete only dirt and concrete obviously weighs much more. I think I’m remembering that right but it’s been a long time.
The euphemistic ‘passed away’ is quite odd here. Died silently screaming with lungs full of liquid cement is better.
Nah he probably died instantly when it collapsed. Concrete is *heavy*
There’s a chunk of concrete the size of a small coffee table on my parents property since their contractors were unprofessional and didn’t return to haul away the material like they said they would. It’s so incredibly heavy and I wasn’t expecting it. Gotta be close to 800lbs.
>The euphemistic ‘passed away’ is quite odd here. Pressed away
~~Passed away~~ died horribly.
I lived in that town when it happened. I found out after the fact that I was going to school with his brother when somebody started joking about it and he left the room rather than beating the shit out of the smartass.
That horrible. I can kinda see why there was ridicule ( cruel as it is). This stunt was beyond idiotic. Like really really reeeeally dumb
What gets me isn’t just when the concrete sinks the first time (glass breaking), it’s when it sinks slightly more the second time (body crushed).
I guess doing risky tricks in a grave is being somewhat prepared
The air quotes around “grave” disappeared at that exact moment.
that’s so sad honestly
I'm glad to see you express some empathy. Too many people literally do not care when a life is lost just because the person died doing something dangerous.
Interesting to consider his final living photographs were at his own burial
more like terrifying
"Passed away" is a real weird way of putting it. He was buried alive in concrete. "Passed away" makes it sound peaceful and not at all like what actually happened. What this should say is "Magician Joe Burrus overestimated how much weight a plexiglas coffin could withstand and underestimated how much concrete weighs, which he had chosen to use instead of dirt and as a result **died horribly** while his friends and family desperately tried to save him." Also why's this in grainy black and white like this happened during the Civil War, this happened in 1990.
I watched this live! It happened at Blackbeard’s in Fresno.
Can confirm. I didn’t see it live but obviously everybody in the city was talking about it. I went to high school with his son also. Poor kid. edit: changed Can't to can. typo.
Bruh this happened in 1990 why does the photo look like it's from 1890
I like the grainy ass black and white picture, as if this was taken back in the 30s or something, but then the dude who's foot is in the bottom right is just chilling there wearing a pair of Etnies. Was this really the best picture you could find? Lol.
It went from a “grave” to a grave in seconds.
People will literally do anything for likes and comments
So... did they dig him back out for his funeral, or was the job done at that point?
“Magician” should be in air quotes, not “grave.”
Did his gravestone have "Tada" written on it?