Laying on a Bed of Nails: Tetanus Shots Anyone?

I have been very lucky to know interesting people. Some of my favorite people do really interesting things that I would never, ever find myself doing on my own, like sideshow acts.  I found out from my friend Gwyd T. Unusual all about sideshow acts. His girlfriend does acrobatics, dances with fire, he walks on glass and yes, he even lays on a bed of nails. I was curious about laying on a bed of nails. Does it hurt? How do you lay on it? Is there some trick, like the are the nails not sharp? I was lucky enough that he let me try this and told me all about it.

There is no trick. The nails are indeed sharp, they will hurt you if you lay on it the wrong way. It is a matter of physics. Laying on one nail would pierce you easily, laying on many nails, it becomes a whole lot less difficult. This particular bed of nails has 964 nails, they are six inches long.  They are sharp. In this picture it appears like there stains on the nails, I was reassured that the stains were not from blood, it was from lemon juice that was poured on them before acts to "make it hurt more" for the audience.  The lemon juice causes rust and stains.

The nails were not dull at all and just to prove it Gwyd threw this cucumber on it. When Gwyd does the act he usually has someone walk on top of him and in a couple instances: break a block of ice on him. A block of ice weighs 300 pounds, so having a block of ice on his chest and a bed of nails under him did not sound like fun to me. When I laid down on it, I immediately felt the nails, the minute they made contact with my body, there was pressure. He helped me down on them, then almost immediately I said, "help me back up". This is not a Serta. Gravity on it's own pulls you down on them. I couldn't imagine laying on them for very long, much less having a block of ice on top of me and having someone smash it. 

When I stood up the red marks on my back were immediately visible and there were a few bits of cucumber. Although, I wasn't injured by the nails, as they did not puncture my skin, I would advise others to get a Tetanus shot before proceeding with the lesson, just in case.


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