Some participants spent mere seconds in the water, leaving behind sandals and floppy beach hats in the rush to get out just as fast as they got in. Some wore costumes, one like “Star Wars” character Darth Vader. Saturday’s was the 16th annual Polar Bear Plunge at the park, benefiting Special Olympics Maryland.
Homeless man stuck in mud for 3 days
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A homeless man who was stuck in thick mud near the Rio Grande river in Albuquerque for three days was rescued Saturday after some high school students on a field trip heard him yelling for help, authorities said.
However, the man’s newfound freedom wasn’t going to last. Police said he was wanted on a felony warrant, and they planned to arrest him after he was treated at a local hospital.
A group of La Cueva High School students and their biology teacher heard the man yelling Saturday morning from a marshy wetlands area in the Oxbow Open Space Preserve, authorities said.
The students were in the area doing a school project. They called authorities and told them that the man said he’d been stuck in the river for three days and could not move, a police report said.
Fire crews and preserve officers responded and found a “male subject stuck on a reed island about a hundred yards from the west bank of the river,” the report said.
Crews deployed an air boat and used a pulley system to lift the man from the mud and water, and up a hill.
The man was taken to a hospital for treatment and was to be later booked on an arrest warrant for suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Thousands take polar bear plunge
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Thousands of people clad in bathing trunks, bikinis and even some woolly winter hats have taken the Polar Bear Plunge into the Chesapeake Bay for charity.
The surging mass of bathers whooped and hollered as they dashed into the chill winter waters, monitored by safety divers in wetsuits just offshore at Sandy Point State Park in Maryland.
Some participants spent mere seconds in the water, leaving behind sandals and floppy beach hats in the rush to get out just as fast as they got in. Some wore costumes, one like “Star Wars” character Darth Vader. Saturday’s was the 16th annual Polar Bear Plunge at the park, benefiting Special Olympics Maryland.