Those pictures and stories of a naked man running down Turner McCall Boulevard that have been circulating around Rome are not fakes or rumors — they’re real.

Rome-Floyd County 911 received nine calls at about 9 a.m. one day last week about a naked male running across the bridge that spans the Oostanaula River on Turner McCall near Olive Garden, according to Phillip Wheeler of Rome Floyd 911.

Several people had stopped to take pictures of the man, said Rome police officer Lee Bowden.

Bowden and officer Glen Michaels quickly got the man into a police car and took him to the hospital. Information from 911 said police had the man in the car and on the way to Floyd Medical Center in three minutes.

The man offered an explanation of why he was running.

“He said he had taken a bunch of drugs,” Bowden said.

Kaitlin Thomas, a Rome native who lives in Atlanta but was visiting her family in Rome, said she was pulling on to the Starbucks parking lot when the nude runner suddenly appeared.

“I almost hit him and then I realized, oh my God, he’s naked!” she recalled Wednesday.

Thomas said she posted something about her experience on Facebook and the comments started flowing in. It wasn’t long before multiple pictures and even video were shared among Romans via the Internet.

“It was crazy,” said Thomas.

No charges were filed and police did not file a report.