Daniel Yepez learned a little something about psychedelic mushrooms this weekend. Namely, that too many can make you trip your balls off so badly that walking slowly and determinedly into the ocean while screaming, "It's time for me to die!" seems like a great idea.
Luckily for Yepez, a 21-year-old from Miami, a sheriff in Long Key was there to jump into the water and pull him out with a "bear hug."
Yepez, who works as a Swatch salesman in Aventura, took some mushrooms in Long Key State Park just before midnight Saturday, according to a police report.
At some point, Yepez freaked out sufficiently that a friend called an ambulance to the park. When a Keys Sheriff's deputy arrived, Yepez took off running for the water, screaming he "was going to drown himself and kill himself," the officer says.
The friend jumped in to try to pull his friend out, but Yepez fought him off and then held himself underwater. The deputy decided to drop his gun belt and jump in after him.
In the water, Yepez fought the officer for more than five minutes, at one point "wildly swinging his arms" and cutting the cop's eye. Finally, the officer was able to drop Yepez with a "bear hug" and handcuff him in the water.
A few hours later at a local hospital, Yepez was contrite. "Yepez also apologized many times over for striking me and [said] that he remembered very little of the incident," the officer writes. "[He] thanked me for potentially saving his life."
Yepez faces a felony count of resisting an officer with violence and a felony drug charge for marijuana and a pipe that police later found in his car.
