Police: Man high on pot laced with formaldehyde crashes, strips naked

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — What started as a minor crash in Orlando spiraled into a full-blown hazmat situation, sending a trooper and two deputies to the hospital.

Authorities said Felix Lockett was high on marijuana laced with formaldehyde when he crashed into a fence Wednesday near Texas Avenue and Americana Boulevard.

Investigators said Lockett then got of the car, stripped off his clothes and began dancing in the street, high on the drug.

Authorities said the driver told investigators he was mixing the formaldehyde with marijuana and smoking it.

Witnesses told Channel 9 they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"There was a naked man and his car had hit this wall, and he was beating on the car with his fist," said witness Trudy Lane.

"(He was) acting very peculiar, disoriented, stumbling around," said John Mulhall of the Orange County Fire Department. "We believed him to be under some sort of narcotic influence."

During the investigation, Orange County Fire Rescue said three officers got headaches when they were exposed to the formaldehyde inside the car.

The smell of the chemical sickened a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and two Orange County deputies.

"Upon entering the vehicle, they started feeling ill - nausea, headache, vomiting. A couple of other deputies were on scene to assist that trooper. All three were transported to the hospital. We used our hazardous training to decontaminate those officers as best we could," Mulhall said.

Formaldehyde has many uses, including embalming dead bodies, but police said the mixture of it with pot is something they've seen before that has the street name "smoking wet."

As a result of the fumes, a hazmat crew was called and they pulled out the bottle from the wrecked car that contained the formaldehyde.

The officers were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Charges are pending against Lockett.

WFTV