A bizarre case involving a man who jumped off a BC Ferries vessel in Active Pass got even stranger when the man allegedly showed up naked and incoherent at a home on Galiano Island.
RCMP say they received a call from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre just after 10 p.m. Wednesday to help search for a man, reportedly in his mid-20s, who leaped off the Victoria-bound Coastal Celebration after launching one of the ship’s inflatable life rafts.
According to one passenger, the man flipped over the ship's railing and yelled "Yahoo!" as he fell.
“This fellow just looked back up in this weird way and just jumped off and did a somersault,” he told CTV News.
Witnesses said the man unfastened a 100-person life raft before he leapt, but BC Ferries said he likely didn’t touch it – and instead swam through the frigid waters to the shore.
As rescue boats from RCMP, search and rescue and the Coast Guard searched for the man for about an hour, police got a call from a distressed Galiano Island resident.
She told them a naked, soaking and incoherent man entered her home and began to throw furniture and other items around her house, damaging it.
Police said she escaped to a neighbour’s home to call for help, and that’s when the man left her home and walked to a nearby resort where he broke into a cabin.
Officers surrounded the cabin and eventually took the man into custody without incident. He was transported to Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, where his condition remains unknown.
RCMP said they’re recommending charges of break and enter, being unlawfully in a dwelling and mischief under $5,000. BC Ferries is expected to pursue charges of its own.
BC Ferries, which is expected to have to pay thousands of dollars in overtime to employees, is expected to pursue charges of its own.
