Why this Navy veteran sat in tub with 600 pounds of ice for nearly 3 hours

By Brelaun Douglas via SWNS

A Navy veteran unofficially beat the Guinness World Record after he live streamed himself sitting in a tub up to his neck filled with ice - for TWO HOURS and 40 minutes.

Michael McCastle, 34, achieved the chilling feat on January 23 , 2021 in Bethel, Alaska, suffering blisters and frostbite on his extremities in the process.

The incredible undertaking was Michael’s eighth enterprise in his “12 Labors Project” – a charitable initiative involving monumental bodily strain.

“In 2014, I started this initiative called '12 labors Project' where I wanted to do these 12 increasingly difficult challenges, extreme challenges for charity,” said Michael, an air traffic controller and high performance coach from Portland, Oregon.

“With all of these labors, the physical feat ties into the cause itself.”

According to Guinness, the longest full body contact with ice is two hours, 35 minutes and 33 seconds, held by Romain Vandendorpe of France. Michael and his team claim that he broke this record, although he did not have Guinness officials at his event.

The daring former serviceman sat in 600 pounds of ice to honor to his father, an air force veteran who had suffered from Parkinson’s before he passed away in 2014.

“I chose the ice because one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s is rigidity, a loss of motor function and stiffness in the extremities that’s beyond what you would experience with old age or arthritis,” he said.

“My dad had rigidity really badly, and he would often describe it as if he felt frozen in his own body.”

Michael live streamed his time in the ice tub on Instagram, directing people to the Brian Grant Foundation, a non-profit that provides resources and tools for those with the degenerative brain disorder.

He said visualization was a key part of being able to tolerate the cold for so long.

“I imagined my body as this empty vase and at the bottom was this fire and every breath I took expanded it to my extremities and I was feeling it with my breath,” he said.

“There was nothing inside of me but this fire and I was even listening to a track of a log burning playing on the speakers.”

Michael’s other labors include running 20 miles a day for 100 days to represent the “20 veterans that commit suicide everyday.”

He also climbed a 20 foot rope repeatedly until he ascended the height of Mount Everest, to simulate “the feeling of wanting to hold onto the things you love as you feel like you’re losing a grip as Parkinson's progresses.”

In 2014 he flipped a 250 pound truck tire for 13 miles, to benefit veteran mental health charities.

For his last four labors, Michael said he’s looking to go in a different direction.

“I want them to challenge me in ways that I haven’t been challenged before,” he said

“All my labors prior to this have been very strength and endurance oriented and this was more willpower and the mind, because I wanted to see where my mind goes when it’s stripped away from physicality.”

He said: “So the labors moving forward will probably be a combination of the two or focusing on one aspect of the whole picture.”