DETROIT — The Canadian man who told the Windsor Star he drank about eight beers prior to sparking an international rescue effort, wants to ensure one thing is clear: He made it.

The U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards dispatched rescue boats and a chopper early Tuesday after receiving word that 47-year-old John Morillo, during an attempt to cross the Detroit River from Windsor in the direction of the Renaissance Center, had disappeared from sight.

Morillo of Windsor told The Star after being released from jail Tuesday — he was arrested for public intoxication and could face fines between $5,000 and $25,000 for swimming in a shipping channel — that he was trying to follow through with a 20-year boast he'd been making to friends that he could swim the river.



Perhaps it's in the family bloodline. Morillo said his grandmother once swam from Amherstburg, Ontario to Boblo Island.

"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," Morillo told The Star. "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."

Morillo told reporter Trevor Wilhelm he "wasn't really drunk" when he took the plunge. He made it to the Renaissance Center, fulfilling his self-challenge, and took photographs with curious onlookers after climbing to a platform, he says. He was near shore on the Canadian side when U.S. Coast Guard officials spotted him in the water.

“I never should have done it. I’ve been telling people I could swim across the river for 20 years and they all laughed at me, and I finally did it," Morillo told The Star. "But I would not suggest anybody do it. There are giant fines for doing it, crossing the shipping lanes. It’s just really stupid and I apologize for all the people that had to go out looking for me.”