Wow. This could have been really bad.

According to the White House, several Secret Service agents walked into the Lincoln Bedroom at approximately 6:45 a.m. and discovered President Obama standing alone in the middle of the room with his hands wrapped around his head and trying with considerable effort to remove it from his body.

The agents who witnessed the scene said that the president seemed very calm, but that he was perspiring and breathing heavily, as if he had been trying to pull his head off for a number of hours. Agents attempted to yank President Obama’s hands away from his head, but he calmly and silently swatted their hands away and continued trying to pull his head off.

Eventually, the Secret Service had to wrestle the president to the ground and pin his arms to his sides in order to avoid a potential disaster. They later issued this statement via their official Twitter account:

tweet by U.S. Secret Service

How does something like this happen? How can we trust the Secret Service to keep the president safe if they can barely stop him from tugging his own head off? It looks like the Secret Service needs to reevaluate their strategies for protecting the president so that a close call like this one doesn’t happen again.