Grant McCartney’s ice swim sparks some serious primal fear

Grant McCartney is always up to something. When he’s not on American Ninja Warrior, he’s... Well, name it. He’s probably up to it. He’s got charisma and energy and the antics abound.

Look, we generally like to keep our personal opinions out of things, but we’re going to go on the record and say that Grant’s latest endeavor is A BIG OLD NOPE.

We’ve seen Grant take ice baths before. We’ve seen him take polar plunges into icy waters a few times. This is just a whole new level of wild. In the video posted on his Instagram, Grant slips below the surface of frigid water in Alaska, sliding beneath some very thick ice into some very dark depths. Is it just us, or did it suddenly get a little harder to breathe in here? Just the preview image also gives us anxiety.

It looks like Grant’s doing it for a documentary project with Ten Thousand.CC, an athletic wear company.

“Understand that and know where your limit is at,” fellow Ninja Warrior and Alaskan native Nick Hanson instructs, as Grant lowers himself into the water. Nick is holding what appears to be some dental floss that’s connected to Grant. Yeah. No thank you.

We’d like to thank Jesse Labreck for being the voice of concerned citizens everywhere.

Nick, who was apparently in on all these shenanigans, shared a different, equally upsetting, angle.

We do need to point out that this wasn’t done on a whim. Grant prepared in advance by training with, you guessed it, ice. He focused on controlling his breathing and mentally overcoming the urge to panic as he submerged himself entirely.

You can watch more of the training process on Grant’s Instagram story, including when he gets the shakes so bad after one bath that he’s unable to zip his coat. You can also watch Nick Hanson scoping out the swim location in Alaska.

The ice, while stunning, is also a little freaky. It’s so clear! It’s so dark down there! Primal fears are triggered!

Once they start cutting the hole for the dive, we learn the ice is about two feet thick.

So to clarify, Grant’s desire is to get into freezing cold, pitch-black water and swim under TWO FEET OF ICE.

And yeah. He does it. NO. Just. No.

Us, as we terror-watched every single video associated with this project.

Obviously, everything went well and we’ll have a thrilling full video to watch soon. Oh look, Nick got in the water too. You know, for fun.

We need to go lie down now.