DAREDEVIL magician David Blaine‘s next stunt is shocking.
Blaine will totter atop a pedestal for three straight days — without sleep or food — while 1 million volts of electricity are sent pulsing around him.
To avoid being burnt to a crisp, Blaine will be outfitted in a chain-mail body suit, a wire helmet and metal-soled boots.
“Being in an electromagnetic field for that long, we don’t know what it’ll do,” Blaine said Tuesday. “I hope it gives me some special abilities to shoot electricity from my fingers.”
All kidding aside, Blaine knows his stunt is no joke.
Starting Friday night, the 39-year-old New Yorker will battle hunger, sleeplessness and fatigue as he stands in the center of a man-made lightning storm.
Seven giant metallic orbs, called Tesla coils, will send brilliant bolts of electricity arcing around him in a covered stage at Hudson River Park’s Pier 54 near W. 13th St.
A team of scientists and medical experts will be keeping a close eye on Blaine, monitoring the air around him and dispersing the potentially harmful gases with fans.
But experts say the chances of Blaine getting electrocuted are small.
His 27-pound-suit will act as a conductor, ensuring that the electric currents will flow around his body rather than through it.
“As long as his suit functions as planned, I don’t see anything that can go wrong,” said David Grier, a professor of physics at New York University. “It’s like driving in a car during a thunderstorm.”
But, Grier added, the long-term effects of standing inside an electromagnetic field for 73 hours remain unknown.
“Do I think its risky? I wouldn’t be the first to sign up to do it myself,” he said.
Blaine’s own doctor, Stuart Weiss, pointed to the potential psychological consequences.
“The thing that we don’t know is what is the psychological stress of standing in this electromagnetic vortex for 73 hours,” said Weiss.
Blaine’s sizzling performance, billed “Electrified” and sponsored by computer chip giant Intel, will be streamed live on YouTube and at popup locations in London, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney.
rschapiro@nydailynews.com
