Marietta Police K-9 saves man who is naked... and a little afraid

MARIETTA, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Marietta Police are giving credit to K9 Officer Jacquo for tracking down a naked man and saving his life.

Police say 911 calls started coming in about a man, completely nude, on a major road.  A short time later, more calls came about a naked man outside a business. 

When police showed up at the business, the man was gone. K-9 Jacquo led his partner Officer Joseph Powell into a wooded area. 

"It's nasty back in there. It's thick, a lot of briars, it's mushy," Powell said.

As he's running through the woods, many questions are running through Powell's mind. 

"Why is he running in the woods naked? Why here? What brought him here and why does he not have any clothes on?" Powell said.

The long, winding path led to a creek at the bottom of an 8-foot embankment. Powell crawled down into the water and found the man just a few feet away. Powell said he was naked and a little afraid. 

"He was worried we were going to hurt him. We weren't trying to hurt him, we wanted to help him," he said.

Marietta Police say the man told them little about himself.  

"All he could state to us was he knew he had a traffic ticket that he hadn't paid and that he had a girlfriend that was now pregnant. I'm not sure how that pushed him to that point," said Officer Chuck McPhilamy. 

Police say the man had been out in the freezing temperatures for at least an hour with no clothes. Officials say they found him in the nick of time. 

"The likelihood of him having the ability to get out of the steep drop, get back to his car and get to safety is not likely, the likelihood is he would have drown there in the water," McPhilamy said.

The man was rushed to the hospital where he was checked out. Once he was released, he was transferred to another jurisdiction where he had a warrant out for him from the traffic ticket.