Hypothermia and jellyfish - 27/07/2010

John Polansky, a 35 year old former Welsh House pupil, living in Colorado, USA lives by a lake but that doesn’t mean that he has to swim the English Channel. When one of John’s friends was looking for a challenge and a means of raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society along with the Special Olympics she approached John. The group of five swimmers undertook a gruelling training routine in Colorado’s icy lakes.

Yet conditions were against them when they took to the Channel on June 25th. The water temperature had dropped to an unusually chilly 49 Fahrenheit. “When you first get in it just feels like hot pins and needles throughout your body, and then you get the ice-cream headache. With two of the team suffering from hypothermia John had to take on two legs.

Although the crossing is 24 miles, tide pull and push swimmers off course and most crossings are closing to 35 miles. The team made exceptional progress completing the crossing, despite a near miss with shipping and jelly fish, in a very fast 10 hours and 48 minutes. So far they have raised nearly $10,000 for their charities.

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