An Australian stuntman says he is "stoked" after setting a new Guinness World Record by swallowing 18 swords at the same time.
Chayne Hultgren, aka The Space Cowboy, achieved the apparently impossible when he swallowed the 72-centimetre blades in Sydney on Monday morning.
The 31-year-old from Byron Bay on the NSW north coast said he was thrilled to have made history.
"It's amazing," he said. "I am really stoked.
"It is definitely one of my greatest achievements so far."
Hultgren began practising the art of sword swallowing at the age of 16 when he swallowed his first hose.
Feat 'not dangerous'
A few years later he upped the ante and began using stainless steel blades.
He swears his latest feat is not dangerous, but the cheeky entertainer conceded that "it wasn't recommended by my doctor".
"It's educated risk," he said. "I don't just straight away grab 18 blades and shove them down
my throat - you've got to practise a lot and build up to it.
"So I stretch my throat with hoses and use a few different techniques to basically enable me to do what, until now, has been impossible."
Hultgren beat his own previous record of swallowing 17 swords - also a Guinness World Record, which he set in 2008.
He is the only person in the world to down more than 13 blades simultaneously, he said.
