It could have been tragic.
That's how police are looking at a situation where a man was making threats to institutions in Bay County
It all started with a call to the Arenac County Central Dispatch Sunday morning around 8:00 when the suspect said he planned on going to Bay County to put everyone into quarantine.
"Also threatening to shoot out the power at the hospital, to open the doors and demanding all the keys to the ambulances," says Lt. Mike Wedding of the Hampton Township Police Department.
Police say 70-year-old Jesse McFadden of Omer made those statements to 9-1-1 dispatcher in Arenac County. He also said he was going to the U.S Coast Guard station in Essexville to get a helicopter.
A few hours later, McFadden can be seen in a surveillance photo outside the Coast Guard station's security gate.
"He was trying to punch in the code and then he had called them and made threats he was going to ram the gate," says Wedding.
Police say McFadden left the Coast Guard facility, and drove off.
Police looking him for were also told to be careful approaching the man.
"We were told this could be an ex-Michigan Militia guy, possibly having machine guns and or M-16's," says Wedding.
About forty minutes after leaving the Coast Guard station, police spotted his SUV at a Speedway store in Hampton Township.
Investigators say McFadden had come out of the store and Wedding found a loaded shotgun hidden under a coat on the passenger seat of McFadden's SUV.
Police were able to get control of McFadden, who faces four felonies, including transporting a loaded firearm in a vehicle and three resisting an officer charges.
Wedding was relieved they were able to approach McFadden outside the store, and not during a traffic stop.
"I hate to think about what would have happened if we would have stopped him on the traffic stop, with that shotgun right there in the passenger side, rack around and come out shooting, or if the coast guard would have come out to the gate." he says.
McFadden has been arraigned but was released from with the condition that he check into a hospital for treatment.
Homeland Security is also investigating.