I'm from Michigan, and have crossed over into Canada many times. It's a fairly simple task to cross the U.S./Canadian border, as long as you follow some simple guidelines. A 47-year old Canadian man learned the hard way that getting drunk and trying swim to Detroit is not standard protocol to cross over.

A self professed "very strong swimmer", John Morillo was enjoying a night of drinking beers when he decided to take the plunge into the Detroit River and swim to the United States. Morillo says he'd been bragging for years that he could do it, and I guess somebody triple dog dared him on that fateful night.

He made it, and decided he didn't want to stay in Detroit. So he turned around and headed back to Canada when the U.S. Coast Guard found him, two hours after he'd initially entered the water.

According to the Windsor Star, Morillo said:

“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. 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.”

As a public service, Morillo was quick to get on camera to discourage any other drunken morons from copying his stunt, mainly citing the high financial cost of a dip in the Detroit River. Please note the Mickey Mouse t-shirt he is sporting for his official statement:

Morillo called his mom to tell her what he had done. She was less than pleased. According to the naughty son:

“She just hung up on me. She said ‘you’re just so stupid.’”

He went on to say words that would make any mischievous teenager proud:

“The harbour master was extremely mad at me. I don’t know, maybe they pulled him out of bed or something.”

I keep having to remind myself this is a 47 year old man, not a 17-year old high school dropout.

Morillo is officially only charged with being intoxicated in a public place. But fines for swimming in a shipping channel can set the idiot back anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000.

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