In what can only be described as bizarre, an American man attempting to elude traffic police dove into the ocean but ended up being chased by a shark instead. The man had to be rescued by the very cops he was running from.

According to local reports, 20-year-old Zachary Kingsbury was pulled over for a traffic stop on Wednesday in Surf City, North Carolina, reports the NDTV.

He allegedly tried to make a run for it when the cops spotted ‘illegal contraband’ inside his car and asked him to step out of the vehicle. That’s when, much to everyone’s surprise, Kingsbury ran onto the beach, jumped into the ocean and began swimming away.

According to The Charlotte Observer, it took nearly three hours before Surf City Police could find and arrest him. They even had to launch a drone to track him.

Drone footage posted on YouTube by a local TV station, WWAY News, shows a shark swimming uncomfortably close to Kingsbury.

That’s when the chase ‘became a rescue operation,’ reports Port City Daily.

At this point, according to The Charlotte Observer, Mr Kingsbury had been swimming for nearly an hour and was more than 4,000 feet away from the coast.

Kingsbury was eventually rescued and arrested. According to WBTV, he is facing several drug-related charges.