Man dives into zoo enclosure when staff refused to save a helplessly drowning ape

In 1990 while while visiting the zoo in Detroit, Rick Swope did something astounding yet very dangerous, but thanks to him, a catastrophe was avoided.

As Swope was visiting the primates area he saw that a battle that had just finished between two males, Jo-Jo the younger male, chose he was no match and fled the scene.

Sadly while getting away he wound up falling into the channel that circled the outside of the enclosure to protect visitors.

Chimps usually can’t swim, and the fall was almost lethal to Jo-Jo.

“Everybody in the entire place was just standing and watching this monkey drown,” Swope told the Deseret News. “When he went went down the second time I knew I needed to do something.”

Despite being highly cautioned to not go into the the monkey’s area by a zookeeper, Swope couldn’t just watch, he quickly scaled a security fence and plunged into the water, and swam toward Jo-Jo.

See the dramatic events in the video below:

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