Lake Wales, Florida - A man has broken an extraordinary Guinness World Record by giving himself a tattoo while skydiving at 15,000 feet. He was in complete freefall at the time!
On June 8, Funky Matas jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet and inked the word "FLY" on the back of his hand as he plummeted, in freefall, towards the surface of the Earth.
As a result of the extraordinary stunt, Matas managed to secure himself a world record for the highest altitude skydive while performing a self-tattoo.
"I love adrenaline, tattoos, and rebellion – so it was a no-brainer for me," Matas told GWR when asked why he decided to seek the record.
According to the tattoo and skydiving enthusiast, it took a long time to organize the stunt, as multiple skydiving companies refused to let him tattoo himself.
Even once he'd secured a company willing to take part in the stunt, he needed to practice tattooing with a massive fan in front of him.
Most importantly, though, he needed to keep the ink from freezing as he fell in extreme cold temperatures. The only solution, seeing as he couldn't top the machine up in freefall, was to simply get it done as quickly as possible.
"Considering we were going about 120 miles an hour, I think it came out pretty good! It's definitely legible," Matas said of the tattoo.
"The message I just sent with my record or with anything I do is that anything is possible. It's not what you want, but how bad you want it," he explained.
"If I can achieve something like this, then anyone else looking to achieve their goals… I hope they get some courage by seeing the things that I've done."