The man who saved a Detroit Zoo chimpanzee from drowning said he never feared for his own life as he wrestled the 135-pound primate.
"He was looking at me," said Rick Swope, a 33-year-old truck driver from Cement City. "I think he knew that I was helping him," so Swope said he wasn't afraid.Swope was visiting the zoo Sunday with his wife, Cynthia, and their three children.
"We watched the chimpanzees for probably about half an hour or so and we were just getting ready to go when I heard a splash," he said. "I just caught out of the corner of my eye this chimpanzee flying through the air."
"Everyone in the whole place was just standing around watching this monkey drown," Swope said Monday. "When he went down the second time I knew I had to do something."
Swope scaled the 4-foot fence and plunged into the cold, murky water. He reached the chimpanzee and pulled it back to the island.
"He was pretty lifeless," Swope said. "When I brought him out of there I wasn't sure he was still alive."
Zoo officials are unsure why the 18-year-old, 135-pound male chimpanzee jumped into the moat surrounding its 1-acre island home, said spokeswoman Pat Butkiewicz. Chimpanzees cannot swim and generally are afraid of water.
In April, a week after the $7.5 million exhibit opened, a 20-year-old female chimp drowned in the 5-foot-deep moat.