Um.

As the sun rises over frigid Chicago, Dan O'Connor chips ice from ladders along Lake Michigan so that he can seemingly defy all common sense and do this. Stunning from every angle, the painfully arctic plunge into today's 35 degree water. Especially jaw dropping, knowing the 56 year old beverage salesman dives daily and has since 2020.

There were the three p's that were happening, and that was the pandemic. Protests were going on and politics. And I came down here hungover and I jumped in. It was like a new awakening.

You did hungover?

Yeah.

That reprieve from chaos became a year round addiction. I'll be real. NBC is paying me to stand here right now, and I'm in, like, a sleeping bag coat. You couldn't pay me enough to dive in there. Like, what is the drive for you?

Like I said, I mean, just that endorphin rush. It's attacking the day.

His drive, breaking the ice with fans on social media. The first anniversary of his first jump drew hundreds.

It's definitely been 100% a mental health.

Uptick for me, so much so the husband and father of three, now dubbed the Great Lake Jumper, today alongside a friend for safety, jumped twice.

It brightens the day, every day, and that's why I keep doing it.

Maggie Vetsa, NBC News, Chicago.

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