Paramedics took an unidentified man to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital yesterday after police pulled him from the Hocking River near the Stimson Avenue bridge. He was not arrested and officials would not release his name or whether he was injured.
Athens and Ohio University police officers responded after bystanders noticed the man in the river and called 911. Athens firefighters helped carry him to a parking lot away from the water's edge, where an ambulance arrived to take him away. Police could give no explanation for his being in the river.
He was floating in the water flipping people off
said OU police officer Eric Hoskinson. The man jumped in the river several hundred yards upstream, near the new River's Edge apartment complex behind Riverpark Towers, and floated down to where police spotted him, near the Mill Street Apartments near South Green, Hoskinson said.
While there is no law against swimming in the river, Hoskinson said he thought the water was too cold, so police thought it best to pull the man out.
I'm assuming the water has to be somewhere around 40 degrees he said. There's a risk of hypothermia. He was pulled out for his own safety.
The man was motionless, but conscious, when police took him out of the water. While he was awake the entire time, he did not respond when officers or paramedics spoke to him, and remained limp the entire time.
Bystanders at the Mill Street Apartments were baffled at what they saw.
Alexander Moulton, a junior aviation major from Baltimore, Md., was attending a barbecue with friends when he noticed the scene.
The man was floating down the river as police cars approached on the southeast side, Moulton said. The man then got out of the river and ran on the northwest bank near the apartments. Noticing police cars coming toward him on his side of the bank, the man jumped back into the water and came to shore on the southeast side where police were waiting, Moulton said.
Moulton, a Dougan Hall resident, said he had no idea why the man was in the Hocking.
This dude just jumped in the water for no reason he said.
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