Millions watch video of Missouri college professor escaping straitjacket in class
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Drury adjunct Tyra Pierce’s straitjacket escape clip drew 34.7M+ views.
- Students filmed the 64-year-old doing a trick he’s used for decades.
- Viral post drew 45,000+ comments and many praising reactions.
For 35 years, Missouri college professor Tyra Pierce has ended classes with a magic trick.
He had something special up his sleeve earlier this month.
And as of this week, that trick has been seen more than 34 million times on Instagram.
Pierce had his students tie him up in a straitjacket.
“He told us if he didn’t get out in under three minutes, we’d get an extra five points on the next test,” freshman Kole Esselstyn says in an interview published on the school’s website.
“And, of course, he made it in under two minutes.”
Esselstyn filmed the struggle. And it was real.
Pierce wiggled, jumped, twisted, pulled, huffed and puffed his way out of that straitjacket, taking a little bow at the end.
The Intro to Psych students remained eerily silent as it all happened in front of a slide projector screen that read “types of psychoactive drugs.”
Esselstyn posted a 30-second clip on Instagram on Feb. 10, tagging the video, “My psych professor is crazy.”
As of this week, his video has been viewed more than 34.7 million times and earned 3.1 million likes — one of the most viral Instagram videos this month, according to Drury.
“I don’t really have a concept of what’s going on,” Pierce says on the Drury website. “I’m on Facebook a little bit, but I’m mostly doing research.
“I’ve been doing the same thing at the end of every class all these years, and I’m glad somebody’s getting smiles out of it.”
Described by Drury as a “high-energy” adjunct professor in the Behavioral Sciences department since 1991, Pierce told Ozarks First that the lecture topic that day had nothing to do with the trick — in case anyone wondered.
Sometimes the tricks match the topic of the day, sometimes they don’t.
“I had covered bio-physiology history and stuff like that, and the last lecture that I was supposed to give was on consciousness and drugs,” Pierce told the Springfield news outlet.
“And so I gave a very comprehensive lecture on stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens and I ironically enough, that was just the lecture that I gave that day.”
Pierce described himself as “a guy that just does magic,” proficient in more than 40 tricks including card tricks and coin magic. He performs the straitjacket escape for every class he teaches in a semester.
“I’m glad I am making that many people smile, so it tickles me,” he said.
The more than 45,000 comments people have left on the Instagram post prove that, indeed, people are tickled at the sight of a 64-year-old professor shimmying out of a restraint associated with violent people.
“And that is how I escaped the asylum to teach psychology students.”
“This is what taking off a sports bra when you’re sweaty feels like.”
“Me in the bathroom trying to get out of a jumpsuit.”
“Imagine this is someone’s special talent at a dinner party.”
“Plot twist ... that’s not your teacher.”
“In the moment I was thinking ‘wow, what an awesome professor,’” student athlete Esselstyn told Ozarks First. “This is probably one of the coolest professors I’ve ever had.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2026 at 11:34 AM.
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