There’s a lot that could’ve gone wrong with the underwater escape that Matt Johnson had planned for his appearance on Britain’s Got Talent. He’d waited for years for the chance to dazzle the judges, but a freak accident sent him home before he’d even hit the stage.

As he tells Vancouver’s Breakfast Television, his tank cracked during rehearsal, flooding the BGT stage with 200 gallons of water. Not only did that put the kibosh on his dreams of winning Britain’s Got Talent, it also put his upcoming spot on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us in jeopardy. An escape act with nothing to escape from isn’t going to fool anyone.

Johnson managed to get a new tank built in time for Penn & Teller, but there was a small problem: The new tank wasn’t built correctly, leaving Johnson scrambling to make it work in time for the show. He tells the full story in the video above, and you can catch his performance on Fool Us in the video below.