Man Attaches 110 helium Balloons To Deckchair In Real Life 'Up' Stunt

You’ve seen Pixar tear-jerker Up, right? Well, one man in Canada has gone and lived it…

Short of making his house fly, Daniel Boria did the next best thing, tying 110 helium balloons to a lawn chair which sent him thousands of feet up in the air and causing a spate of sightings from perplexed onlookers on Sunday. Captured on camera, he was seen flying through the air in Calgary before jumping off and parachuting to safety.

Designed as a marketing stunt for his cleaning business, the maverick had originally intended to parachute off the lawn chair into the Calgary Stampede, an annual rodeo in the area, before bad weather cut that short and he was forced to crash two miles south, fracturing his foot in the process.

Worse was to come: police charged him with ‘mischief’ and federal charges are now pending due to the fact he breached Canadian airspace regulations.

Related: Take our ultimate Up Quiz

Speaking to reporters afterwards, as well as conceding that “It’s already worse than I thought it would be”, the poor chap revealed his company had at one stage even debated bringing a Mexican into the country as a temporary worker to fly a plane from which he would jump in - but ultimately the cheaper option was a bright assortment of balloons and a pump.

He said of the experience: “I was sitting in a lawn chair looking down through the clouds at 747 airplanes and looking up to a cluster of helium balloons. I rose to a certain altitude and the winds got pretty intense. I was somersaulting out the chair and it felt like minus 30. I watched below as the Stampede and my dream drifted away."

Let’s just hope he gave parachutes to that shaggy dog and chubby boy scout too. They could be anywhere by now.