Near-record cold can't stop annual Polar Bear Plunge in Milwaukee

This New Year's Day was one of the coldest in Milwaukee history.

But that didn't stop hundreds of people from gathering at Bradford Beach to leap into Lake Michigan for the annual Polar Bear Plunge.

Arctic temperatures forced Chicago and Kenosha to cancel their plunge events, joining a number of cities on the East Coast that put similar plans on ice.

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Many in Milwaukee insisted the icy dip wasn't that painful despite the frigid cold — the temperature was only about 2 degrees at noon when people took the plunge.

"It was great," 11-year-old Thaija Henry said, her teeth chattering. "I'm going to do it again."

Still, even seasoned veterans acknowledged that they couldn't remember a chillier plunge.

"It's got to be the coldest," Dennis Wurch of West Allis said during a break from playing his trombone. "I've been doing it for 40 years."

Wurch, who was wrapped in a faux-fur Polar Bear, periodically sipped a mix of vodka and Jägermeister from a pouch he was wearing around his neck.

Asked if he had any advice for first-time participants, Wurch said, "Don't come down here if you have any good sense left at all."

Officials with the Milwaukee Fire Department issued harsher warnings before the event, telling people they would be putting themselves at risk of hypothermia and frostbite.

Those warnings didn't stop Zac Salzman from participating in his first — and possibly last — plunge.

"I think it's going to be one and done," Salzman said as he dried off.

The Fire Department dispatched paramedic units to Bradford Beach and drysuit-clad rescue divers stood in the water keeping an eye on event participants.

No one appeared to experience significant trouble, but just about everyone admitted the tradition was especially cold this year.

"Now I know how Leonardo DiCaprio felt," Mike Gappa said, referencing the tragic ending of the film "Titanic."

"I wouldn't have let him on the door either," Nicki Pfeffer joked as she and Gappa climbed out of the water onto the icy shore.