A Chicago man has officially leapt into Lake Michigan every single day for 365 consecutive days.
Dan O'Conor first jumped into the water at Montrose Harbor in June 2020 to treat a hangover. Now, he says that the strange habit has become part of his daily routine as a way of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I started jumping in Lake Michigan on June 13 [2020], that was the first day, and the first day I came down here was because I was hungover. And it felt so good I just started doing it every day," he said.
O'Conor says that jumping into the lake helped to clear his mind.
"You know, with everything that was happening, you talk about June, it was the pandemic and the politics and the protests, just all of that, I could come down here and dive in the water and it would just kind of clear it, clear the palette and cleanse the day, start anew," he continued.
The winter months were difficult for O'Conor, who had to hack through the ice to make a large enough hole for him to reach the water, causing a number of cuts and scrapes.