Ouch! Swedish Cross Country Skier Calle Halfvarsson Gets Frostbite Where It Hurts Most

The NSFW website The Sword features pics of many, many penises. Today it shared a story about one reported earlier by CNN. Its headline read: "'I have frozen my penis,' says Swedish cross-country skier Calle Halfvarsson after racing in icy temperatures."

Halfvarsson's painful dilemma occurred while competing in Ruka, Finland this past weekend. According to Reuters, temperatures dropped to a chilly five degrees Farenheit (-15 degrees Celsius) at the start of the race.

"After taking part in the 20-kilometer World Cup event in Ruka, Halfvarsson said that he had to take shelter in the warmth after sustaining a frozen penis," writes CNN.

"I have frozen my penis. For real," Halfvarsson told Expressen. "Damn, I had to lie in there [the athletes' tent] for 10 minutes to warm it up. It hurts so damn much. It's terrible."

It's not the first time Calle Halfvarsson's genitals freeze during a race. It has actually happened once before, the Swedish outlet adds.

"It's lucky that I'm going to have my second child, because this is going to be difficult in the future if I'm going to continue like this," says Halfvarsson with a laugh.

Asked about the pain he said: You should get a tip from me. Stay away from it, because it is the worst thing you can experience."

"Cross-country skiers, who normally compete in skin-tight racing suits and thin under-layers, can be particularly susceptible to chilly extremities," writes CNN.

"At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Finland's Remi Leindholm suffered from a frozen penis and needed to apply a heat pack to the affected area at the end of the 50km mass start race. Leindholm, like Halfvarsson, had also previously experienced a frozen penis while competing in Ruka."

Back when Leindholm suffered the injury, Vice wrote about frostbitten penises. Vice spoke with Dr. Seth Cohen, an assistant professor of urology and the director of the Sexual Dysfunction Program at NYU Langone, who explained the penis, like fingers and toes, are "distal extremities" and freeze first when exposed to extreme cold. Distal extremities haven't "any accessory arterial blood flow. So if that specific flow of blood gets blocked, or frozen, or constricted for any reason, that organ starts to lose oxygenated blood. That's what frostbite is: It's when you get a constriction of a blood vessel, there's no blood flow to that area for a prolonged period of time, and that leads to end organ damage."

The reason why the pain is so extreme is due to the return of warm blood to the frostbitten tissue. "Why does that hurt? Traumatized nerves are sending signals to the brain that they're not happy. These are nerves that have been struggling for oxygenated blood. Now they get a ton of it. They've gone numb. And when numb things wake up, they usually wake up like a charley horse. It's like if you're sitting too long and you have those pins and needles on the end of your feet. It doesn't feel very good."

He continued: "Once he warmed up his penis, the blood flow came back. That's very painful. It's the same as anyone who's ever experienced near-freezing temperatures in their fingers and toes. When you start to warm it back up, it feels pretty awful. So you can only imagine what that must feel like in the penis."

On a happier note, everything is fine with Halfvarsson. Here are some pics from his Instagram.