Nick Lees: Edmonton firefighter looking to set a new world record by surviving a three-hour ice bath

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An Edmonton firefighter is training to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark by surviving in an ice bath for three hours.

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“I plan to stay in a tub filled with ice for three hours and set a new world record that I think will bring interest to help advance science,” says 38-year-old Wes Bauman.

“I will make my bid in support of a fundraiser for children with muscular dystrophy from the firefighters during the Edmonton Craft Beer Festival on October 23 at the Expo Center. I’m pretty sure of success. “

Personally, I thought he was crazy. That was until he told me his story.

“It was about the middle of my nearly 14-year firefighting career that I began to suffer from panic attacks and was plagued by autoimmune diseases and inflammatory disorders,” he says. “I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“The counseling sessions and the pills didn’t work and when I had dark thoughts, I intuitively started jumping into a cold shower, or into a cold lake if there was one nearby. I found that my dependencies, negative thoughts, and autoimmune disorders disappeared.

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“About a year spent in this practice, a friend told me about a Dutch boy named Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman.”

Dutch-born Hoff has developed a combination of meditation, breathing exercises, and cold exposure that can help people regulate stress levels.

“With training, it allows ordinary people to control their minds and bodies and achieve exceptional feats,” says the firefighter.

Wim has set some 26 world records, Bauman explains, climbing some of the world’s tallest mountains in just shorts and shoes, including the 7,200-meter point on Mount Everest.

“He was also standing in a bowl while immersed in ice cubes for almost two hours; swimming under the ice for 57.5 meters (188 feet, 6 inches) and in 2011, running without water, a full marathon in the Namibian desert, one of the hottest and driest deserts in the world. He also ran a half marathon north of the Arctic Circle barefoot.

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Bauman says that Wim is helping to change paradigms in modern science in the laboratory, such as demonstrating that humans can voluntarily access and influence our anatomical nervous system, immune system, and endocrine system.

“I have traveled to see Wim the Ice Man twice, once in Vancouver and once in Poland during the winter, and I have added his breathing technique to my cold therapy,” says Bauman.

“It has been magical ever since. I think there are parallels between handling sub-zero weather conditions, high altitudes, and free diving, and I dived to 70 feet (21 meters) myself on one breath and climbed a lot of mountains wearing only shorts. “

In February of last year, Bauman dived in ice up to his neck for the annual rooftop fire camp fundraiser to help children with muscular dystrophy.

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“I had planned to stay an hour to gain more media exposure for our cause, but at the last minute, I decided to challenge the world record, which was two hours and eight minutes at the time.

“I logged two hours and 20 minutes and I knew I could have stayed longer, but being the year 2020, I thought it was a good number to finish.”

While training for this year’s rooftop event, eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bauman again broke his own world record for ice baths by posting two hours and 45 minutes.

He plans to set a three-hour mark at the Oct. 23 event, drawing attention to the firefighters’ MD 50-50 raffle.

But he has a plan to show that three hours on ice didn’t freeze his brain by memorizing and then testing the sequence of cards on “a deck or two.”

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The firefighter plans to return to Poland to take another course in February and qualify as a Wim Hof ​​Method Instructor.

Plan to gain 15-20 pounds

Before his record attempt, the five-foot-10-inch-tall, 175-pouind firefighter plans to consume between 4,000 and 6,000 calories of food each day and take progressively longer ice baths.

“I’m normally 14 to 15 percent body fat, but I plan to gain 15 to 20 pounds,” says Bauman. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if I could only have five to ten pounds. The cold burns fat like nothing else. “

Encouraged by Hof, Bauman hopes to attract a science professor and students from the University of Alberta to study his exposure therapy and breathing techniques as a treatment for PTSD.

“Diaphragmatic breathing and unforced gradual cold exposure can teach people how to consciously regulate their body systems that were previously thought to be impossible,” he says. We believe it deserves further investigation.

“As firefighters, we are facing an increasing number of drug overdoses and suicides. I know from my own experience that we can go deep within ourselves and regain control.

“My goal is to show everyone that none of us is as helpless as we might think. We need to learn to activate the power that we all have within us. “