In 2010, the freediver Johanna Nordblad was involved in a terrible injury that transformed her life and set her on the path of Freediving beneath the ice.
She began as a regular free diver, setting the women’s world record by swimming a horizontal distance of 158m in 2004, in Cyprus. However, after her accident as a part of her treatment plan, she got invested in freediving under the ice.
According to her interview with The Guardian, she discussed her experience with an accident. “I was riding a downhill bike down a slick, muddy road down a hill when I began to skid,” she recalls.
“The fall wasn’t particularly hazardous, but I got unlucky and landed on a rock.” “Like a bent branch, my left leg was broken into a thousand pieces.” Nordblad was rushed to the hospital and had complicated surgery.
The swelling and complex fractures were so severe that physicians couldn’t stitch the leg back up and heal the wounds for another 10 days.
Finland's Johanna Nordblad broke the all-time record for free diving under ice in a swimming costume and without fins to a depth of 103m. The dive, in 2°C water and with an air temperature of 7°C, lasted 2 minutes and 42 seconds. pic.twitter.com/bFFD9n1y7h
— euronews (@euronews) March 19, 2021
She was a graphic designer by trade, and she chose to sell her Helsinki firm and say goodbye to the 13 people who worked for her in order to focus on recovery. A painful and difficult process that lasted more than 18 months and consumed all of her resources.
She was eventually able to walk without a stick after another year, but the nerves in her leg had been so seriously injured that the agony was intense and long-lasting.
“That’s when my doctor suggested I try cold-water treatment,” Nordblad adds. “I barely managed to hold my leg in 4C water for a minute the first time, but the relief was instantaneous.” It finally stopped hurting.”
Nordblad had become so acclimated to the cold over the months that she couldn’t live without it. She began submerging the second leg, then her entire body, and finally her head.
“I liked how it felt.” That’s when the notion of diving beneath the ice came to me. What better location to give it a go than Finland?”
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