Anti-cop sentiment has been bubbling over lately, but here's a story to remind us that police officers can and do save lives — even the lives of people acting like idiots. A sheriff's deputy in the Florida Keys dove into the ocean late Saturday night to save a man attempting to drown himself after bad-tripping on mushrooms.

The partier, 21-year-old Miami resident Daniel Lepez, had eaten the mushrooms earlier in the night, and shortly thereafter "started to act strangely and talk about death." Later, while being treated by paramedics, he took off into the water, saying he "wanted to drown." Friend Jason Mavila ran after him, but Lepez went under. That's when Deputy Nicholis Whiteman, who had just arrived at the scene, "dropped his gun belt on the sand and ran in to assist Mavila." (That move's probably not in the Sheriff's Deputy Manual.)

From Whiteman's report:

"I gave Yepez loud verbal commands to stop resisting and to let me bring him back to shore. Yepez continued to struggle violently, by pushing myself and Mavila away numerous times as we were attempting to hang onto him."

When Yepez finally came down from his high in a local hospital, he was taken to jail and charged with resisting arrest with violence, and possession of weed and drug paraphernalia. But he also appreciated Whiteman's efforts:

"Yepez also apologized many times over for striking me and [said] that he remembered very little of the incident," Whiteman wrote. "Yepez thanked me for potentially saving his life."

[Orlando Sentinel]