Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe ROCKHAMPTON, Australia, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A man who decided to take a New Year's dip Saturday in the raging waters of the Fitzroy River in northeastern Australia faces criminal charges, officials say. Police Inspector Mike Curtain said the 39-year-old swimmer not only put his own life at risk but those of emergency workers who might have had to rescue him, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. As it happened, the man was swept downstream from Rockhampton but managed to get to dry land by his own efforts. Advertisement Curtain said swift-water rescue teams had already been dispatched when the man was reported safe. "What might seem quite a simple issue to him was indeed an act of stupidity and something that could have been a fatality for us here at Rockhampton," Curtain said. Rockhampton in central Queensland 25 miles inland from the coast is experiencing some of the worst flooding in its history.
