A man was arrested on Wednesday after police said he tried to cross from the U.S. into Canada on a river using an air mattress.
When John Bennett, 25, was denied entry by customs officials at the U.S.-Canada border at Calais, Maine, due to outstanding criminal mischief charges, he decided to cross using an air mattress he bought at a local Walmart, CBC News reported.
Police said Bennett inflated the air mattress and used a wooden board to paddle across the St. Croix River in southeastern Maine, but was stopped by officials. Bennett said he was trying to cross the border in order to reach his pregnant girlfriend in Canada, who he said had an ex-boyfriend that was allegedly making threats against her, police added.
"I sense that there's this element of a Romeo-Juliet type of thing. I think that's part of it," Peter Thorn, a lawyer representing the public prosecution service of Canada, told The Guardian.
Bennett was arrested and pleaded guilty to failing to appear at a border crossing.
In court, the judge took the idea of floating across the river on a mattress a lightly.
"Pardon the pun, but it seems to me you wanted to get there, come hell or high water," he said, according to The Guardian.
Read more at CBC News.
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