| Presto | 07-23-2013 04:33 PM |
Another person to admire: Drunk man swims across border
1 Attachment(s) This guy is kinda awesome. What a hoser! Quote:
The police, the port authority and his mom are all really mad at him, but John Morillo takes comfort in the fact that he now has bragging rights.
Morillo sparked an international rescue operation late Monday when he loaded up on about eight beers then jumped in the river and swam to Detroit, just to prove he could do it.
“If I’m going to be in the paper, I’d at least like them to say I actually made it, even though I got in trouble and everything,” Morillo, 47, said Tuesday. “I gotta pay fines and stuff. But I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t make it, because then my buddies are going to say ‘ha, ha, you didn’t make it.’ Because that was the whole thing, to show them I could do it.”
Shortly after getting out of jail Tuesday, Morillo admitted he’s “really stupid” and regrets causing a hassle for authorities, but added he didn’t expect it would cause such a stir.
Windsor police responded to the 1600 block of Riverside Drive around 11:30 p.m. Morillo’s neighbour, who wanted to witness his swim, called police about half an hour after she lost sight of him.
Police notified the Canadian and U.S. coast guards. Three boats and a helicopter were deployed to search the area. The U.S. coast guard found Morillo around 12:50 a.m., swimming on the Canadian side just west of the Hilton hotel.
Morillo is charged with being intoxicated in a public place. Police said the Windsor Port Authority was also investigating and would be contacting Transport Canada.
Morillo said Windsor’s harbour master told him he’ll likely be fined for swimming in a shipping channel, which could run anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000.
Authorities are also stressing that swimming in the Detroit River is “extremely dangerous” because of the strong undertow in the shipping channel. It’s also prohibited under Port Authority Operating Regulations. Harbour Master Peter Berry with the Windsor Port Authority couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
“The harbour master was extremely mad at me,” said Morillo. “I don’t know, maybe they pulled him out of bed or something.”
Morillo said he’s also been barred from any city property on the waterfront. Besides that, he had his irate mother to deal with.
“She just hung up on me,” said Morillo. “She said ‘you’re just so stupid.’”
Morillo’s ill-planned exploit was actually years in the making. It started when he heard a story about his grandmother swimming from Amherstburg to Boblo Island. He figured that didn’t sound so difficult.
“I was drinking, but I wasn’t really drunk,” Morillo said Tuesday. “The thing is, I’ve been telling people I’m going to swim across the river for years and they’re like ‘yah, yah, blah, blah, you can’t make it.’ So, I don’t know, last night I just decided it was the time to go.”
He jumped in the river near Hiram Walker and swam to the Renaissance Center.
“When I got to the Renaissance Center I couldn’t find a way to get up onto the platform,” said Morillo. “Then some guy said ‘hey there’s a ladder over here.’ I climbed up the ladder, then people were asking to take their pictures with me. There was one woman, she said she was from Windsor and she thought I was crazy. She was right.”
Then he slipped back in the river for his return trip. It wasn’t long after that he realized his swim had attracted more attention than anticipated.
“As soon I saw the helicopters going by and the boats looking for me, I was like ‘oh, this is really stupid,’” said Morillo.
He said he was just about to climb back on shore in Windsor when officers came up in a boat and told him to get out of the water.
“I’m very sorry that I put those rescue people and the city workers and the coast guard out of their way for something so stupid,” said Morillo.
“I never should have done it. I’ve been telling people I could swim across the river for 20 years and they all laughed at me, and I finally did it. But I would not suggest anybody do it. There are giant fines for doing it, crossing the shipping lanes. It’s just really stupid and I apologize for all the people that had to go out looking for me.”
| source: Drunk man swims across Detroit River (with video) | Windsor Star |
