Guy on 'Mission From God' Attempts Liberty Island Swim

Why would a 29-year-old man dive into the frigid New York Harbor and attempt a three-quarter mile swim to the Statue of Liberty? Clearly, he was on a mission from God—or so he told rescuers. "He said God told him to swim to Liberty Island," an officer tells the New York Post. "He said he would rather drowned [sic] than get on the boat." The floundering man did, however, eventually climb aboard a US Park Police boat after the 4:30pm incident yesterday.

"When we got to him he was shivering like a leaf and the tides were taking him away from Liberty Island," the officer says. The man, who had been in the water 45 minutes and was a quarter-mile from Liberty Island, was taken to a medical center for psychiatric evaluation. (The Post's evaluation? It refers to him as a "nut" in its headline.)