Be careful where you get your health advice

A truly, truly shocking cautionary tale.

So one time there was this guy who had plans to meet his estranged son in an Amsterdam park. 

Unsurprisingly, this man was feeling a bit nervous. It had been almost a decade since they’d spoken. To help himself calm down, he decided to go for a swim in the park’s pond. It was chilly – Amsterdam often is – but he didn’t mind. He’d done this hundreds of times before.

So this man stripped off all his clothes, and jumped into the frigid water completely naked. After doing a few laps he was feeling much more relaxed. His attention then turned to an ornamental fountain spout in the middle of the water. 

Now, many times in the past this dude had used the gushing water jets to thoroughly clean his bung hole. Yes, inside and out. Yes, in public. Because he had time, he decided he would make use of the fountain and give himself a good pond water clean. 

So he positioned himself over the nozzle and waited. 

What he didn’t know was that the council had recently decided to up the fountain’s water pressure. Quite a bit, actually. You know those videos where people use pressure washers to carve through dirt on old concrete? I imagine what he experienced was similar to putting one of those between your cheeks and flicking the on switch. 

At this point you might think you want to stop reading. I implore you not to. This is leading somewhere, I promise. 

So when the fountain went off, the water cut through this fellow’s intestines with little more resistance than a finger poking a hole through a freshly baked muffin. 

He was now facing a very serious medical emergency. Bleeding and in tremendous pain, he somehow managed to drag himself to the shore. When his son arrived, his first words to him after almost a decade were: I need to go to a hospital. 

So much for making a good impression. 

He was taken to the emergency department and quickly received surgery to repair the damage. The risk of infection was incredibly high, but he refused antibiotics. Remarkably, he survived with only a gnarly scar on his stomach. 

The name of the madman who positioned his puckered anus over a waterspout in a public fountain and skewered his own intestines? 

Wim. Hof. 

This guy.

No, really. I’m serious. 

Wim Hoff, for those who don’t know (and sorry if that’s you – that reveal would have really lost its punch) is the man who popularised ice baths, and cold water swimming. He believes extreme cold exposure can be used as a treatment for all kinds of ailments from autoimmune diseases to depression. 

It’s good to know the Titanic’s victims died happy, I suppose. 

So is there actually something to this cold exposure malarky? The science says it’s plausible, but the studies backing it up are patchy. At the very least it probably won’t hurt, assuming you don’t have any kind of heart problems or arrhythmia. Does it at least feel good then? I’m embarrassed to admit I can personally answer this question. 

There was a time I would regularly turn up to Coogee Beach a bit before 6am on Sundays, and jump into a tub filled with water and ice bought from a servo. For two minutes I would  sit shivering and in agony, trying to ignore the feeling of my hands and feet cramping. This did not feel good. 

What I did enjoy was getting out. I’d run into the ocean which then felt comparatively warm, almost like a bath. It was a pleasant rush of endorphins and relief. Akin, I would say, to punching yourself repeatedly in the head and then suddenly stopping. 

From Wim Hof’s Instagram page. Maybe I don’t want to do everything you do.

The other thing Wim Hof is known for is his breathwork technique. He teaches a peculiar method which involves hyperventilating and then holding your breath for a really long time. 

Proponents claim it results in a high which rivals drugs and alcohol. I, not a proponent of breath work, would say they’re probably not drinking or taking enough. They also say it boosts mood, mental clarity, and can help with chronic pain. 

Wim Hof also uses this technique to swim underwater for long periods of time. If this is something you’d like to learn, you can go to his expensive two-day workshops (they cost around $3,000 AUD, don’t include accommodation and will give you 4-hours of group time with the man himself). 

But who knows, maybe Wim Hof is onto something. Who am I to say the universe withholds its secrets from people who perforate their own bowels with pond water? 

The face you make when you shred your own arsehole on a public fountain

But this I know for certain: hyperventilating and then holding your breath underwater is a very good way to die. There have been a number of drownings associated with Wim Hof’s practice. Whether you’re in a bath, shower, pool or ice bath, it’s really best to just breathe normally.

If, given all of the above, you’re still drawn to the Ice Man and his philosophies, that’s fine. But I do ask this of you. Everytime you consider following a suggestion made by Wim Hof, I first want you to imagine his quivering hole positioned above a public fountain’s nozzle. Then I want you to take a few deep breaths (if you are not near a body of water feel free to hyperventilate) and ask yourself, is this the man I want to take health advice from? 

What happens next is up to you.