John Bloodsworth, 37, was arrested on child abuse charges on Monday after he allegedly throw his 5-year-old son into the ocean to teach him how to swim. Bloodsworth then reportedly abandoned his child so he could repeatedly dive from a Daytona Beach pier.
One witness, Mitch Brown, told WESH 2 that he ran down to the beach to help the child who was thrashing in the water while his father was off pier-diving.
‘The little kid was out here by himself. Completely by himself. There was nobody around him, no adults,’ Brown, a former Georgia State Trooper on vacation in Daytona Beach with his family said.
When Daytona Beach police arrested Bloodsworth, he reportedly told them he’d been teaching the boy to swim and that he was ‘going to jail for being awesome.’