A disoriented Queens man was found wandering along Jones Beach early today — mumbling to rescuers that he’d just been adrift on a raft in the ocean for three days.
“All of a sudden, I see this big fella in a daze wandering along the boardwalk with a garbage bag over his body — he was easily 6’3″ and over 300 pounds,” said a stunned Gary Smith, a nightclub promoter from Wantagh, LI.
“He had the bag covering his whole body. He was sopping wet and covered in sand.
“He didn’t’ look quite right,” added Smith, who said he was on his daily morning walk when he spotted 47-year-old Pablo Perez of Flushing around 6:15 a.m.
“He just looked confused and dazed. … He looked like he needed some sort of help.
“I asked this guy where he came from, and he say, he’d been out on a raft for the last three days. He looked like it,” Smith said. “He told me he was fishing and that his raft was tied to another boat and became detached and he drifted out to sea. It was all very incredible.”
Smith said he led Perez over to a nearby bench and told the exhausted man — who had on soaked jeans and the black garbage bag over his torso and thighs — that he was going to call 911.
“Then he suddenly tells me that he has a gun, and he started to take it out,” said Smith, who is in his 60s. “And I said, ‘Whoa, buddy, why don’t you just keep it where it for now.”
He said Perez complied, and EMTs and state park police quickly arrived.
Smith said Perez told them he had a gun. He then lifted up his garbage bag, showing a bulge in the shape of the weapon under his black wet suit. The cops asked if they could cut it out, and he said yes, Smith said.
They cut around the bulge, and “the gun just fell out — I couldn’t believe my eyes,’’ Smith said.
It was a loaded, .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. Perez didn’t have a license for it and was later charged with criminal possession of a weapon, cops said.
A 9-foot raft was later recovered just down the beach, near Field 4 Pavilion. It had a duffel bag inside, although it was unclear if there was any food or water in it, Smith said.
“To be honest, I didn’t know if the guy was telling the truth about the raft, and then, what do you know, there it is, right on the beach,” Smith said.
Perez was rushed to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, where he was being treated for dehydration and exhaustion, a spokeswoman said.
State Park Police Chief Richard O’Donnell said, “He did not appear to be seriously injured.
“It’s a very unusual incident, and we’re trying to clear up what happened.’’
Police said no missing-persons reports had been filed in regards to the incident.