Let's just say his night took a swan dive.
Police rescued a 36-year-old man from the center of Lake Eola in Orlando, Fla, in the wee hours of Friday morning, after he hijacked a boat to visit some friends and got stuck on a fountain.
Except the boat was a swan. The friends were also swans. And, OK, they weren't actually friends, he was just looking for a nonjudgmental group setting.
We should back up.
Lake Eola, in a public park in downtown Orlando, is a large lake that features a central fountain, swan-shaped paddleboats, and realswans.
#OnlyOn9 All the swan boats are back where they belong...after police say a man stole one and took it to the fountain. Investigators say he then hot on the fountain and yelled for help. Story at 6am. pic.twitter.com/02TU8WWFJi
— Ty Russell (@TyRussellWLOS) December 15, 2017
Here's what happened, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the Orlando Weekly and WFTV:
Keith Thurston "ingested a large quantity of Molly" and decided he wanted to commune with the swans because, as the police report put it, "they didn't judge him."
So, of course, he stole a swan-shaped boat, paddled to the fountain at the center of the lake, stepped out from the boat, forgot the crucial step of tying the boat to the fountain, and found himself marooned.
"Officers were called about 4 a.m. Friday after people heard Thurston screaming for help," the Sentinelwrites.Police set off on a rescue mission.
Coming up at noon— we are following the story behind the man who was rescued on the fountain in Lake Eola. pic.twitter.com/48bCFaMDKM
— Ty Russell (@TyRussellWLOS) December 15, 2017
"Thurston told police he was not trying to hurt himself and had on a life preserver he found on the swan boat," WFTV reports, citing police. The officers took the man to the hospital.
"OPD is following up with the rental boat company to see if charges will be filed," the Orlando Weeklysays.
This happened on Friday, so we apologize for the delay in bringing you the news. We weren't aware of this story until we saw, and could not possibly resist, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's headline "He took 'a large quantity of Molly' and messed with the wrong swans, police say."
As theStar-Telegramimplies, Thurston may have miscalculated in more ways than — well, in several ways. Swans can be territorial and violent, and the specific birds that he was so eager to spend time have been known to be confrontational.
Here's footage of one chasing an Orlando police officer around a truck:
But hey. Who knows. Maybe the swans are just suspicious of authority, and would be much more welcoming to an overnight visit from a man notin uniform.
Who are we to judge?
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDAxNzg0MDExMDEyMTYyMjc1MDE3NGVmMw004))
