麻豆社

Jolyon Jenkins meets the people who want to swim a mile through freezing cold water. Some ice swimmers acclimatise by sitting in icy paddling pools in their gardens and sleeping without bedclothes. Others pile on the calories to build bulk. But apart from the danger of hypothermia, the risks are legion: cold shock as you enter the water, loss of brain function or motor control leading to drowning, and non-freezing cold injury that can leave sufferers with permanent pain in their extremities. So why do the ice swimmers want to do it? Jolyon speaks to two British ice swimmers to find out.

First broadcast on Out of the Ordinary, 17 March 2017.