Naked man nearly photo bombs Ron and Don

It’s a common pet peeve around Seattle. You’re going about your day, trying to take promotional photos. And a naked man shows up in the shot.

“It started as something fun and funny, but then I really felt for everyone involved,” Don O’Neill said.

RELATED: I tackled a naked man on Eastlake

KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don were taking promotional photos around 8:30 a.m. Thursday on the shores of Lake Union, near where Eastlake meets South Lake Union. A naked man suddenly jumped out of the water and sat in a ray of sunlight; he appeared to be in his 20s. Then he started convulsing — 911 was called. Medics responded. They tried to help the man, but he jumped back into the water.

“They didn’t want to deal with the person because he was not stable,” Don said. “You could tell that he was scared and paranoid, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he was in distress.”

First responders thought the man was having an opioid crisis, according to Don.

“Then two Seattle police officers show up and it’s their job to go down and talk to this gentleman and try to get him out of the water,” Don said.

As previously covered on MyNorthwest, being naked in Seattle is not illegal. What can be a crime is what you are doing while naked.

“In the City of Seattle, being naked and going for a swim is not a crime,” Don said. “Even if it was a crime the jail wouldn’t take him in his current condition … they would say he needs to go to the hospital. Now the people at Harborview are involved.”

“He’s going to come to, and go back out onto the streets,” Don said. “He’s probably going to do heroin again, possibly get a hot shot, and possibly die from that.”

“Or jump back in the water and drown,” Ron added.

It’s easy to tell the story and laugh about seeing a naked man, or any person doing something quirky on the streets of Seattle. But it’s hard to see it for what it really is — the state of Seattle. Or to see the system struggling under the weight of a societal crisis.

“Here’s a guy who is ripe for services … you would think he would be able to get into some sort of program,” Ron said. “We have no game plan for this guy. We should be ashamed of ourselves as a community. We keep electing the same chuckleheads who convene a blue ribbon panel, and hire a homelessness czar, and then we put out a 400-page report, bring in consultants and pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have a town hall meeting and everybody gets up and says ‘Not in my backyard.'”

“And in the meantime, we have actual human beings that need something,” he said. “What are we doing? Honestly, what are we doing? What are we supposed to do with that guy? It’s not acceptable.”