A 55-year-old snowmobiler stranded on a drifting sheet of ice during a whiteout blizzard near Mackinac Island, Michigan, was rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker after a harrowing multi-agency operation on Lake Huron.
The Mackinac Island Fire Department received an alert at about 4:40 p.m. that the man had become lost on the ice, roughly a mile off the west shore of the island. Authorities had previously warned him not to venture out, but he went anyway.
Fire Chief Jason St. Onge dispatched a crew of six firefighters onto the ice to locate the man. The rescue moved slowly due to waist-deep snow and brutal weather. Rescuers directed the man to use his GPS and move toward them, but he soon reached open water and became trapped on a drifting piece of ice.
Because blizzard conditions made an aerial rescue impossible, the Coast Guard rerouted the USCG Cutter Mackinaw, a vessel with heavy icebreaking capability, to his location. The cutter’s ice rescue team located the man, brought him and his snowmobile aboard, and provided medical care.
Lt. William Erekson, the assistant operations officer assigned to the Cutter Mackinaw, confirmed the man showed minor signs of hypothermia but was later reported to be in stable condition.
“Today’s response was a phenomenal team effort in saving a person in distress,” Erekson said. “All hands played a pivotal role, to include a challenging ice rescue deployment in harsh weather, seamless ship-wide execution, and superb coordination with Coast Guard Sector Northern Great Lakes. This case is a powerful reminder that when lives are on the line, the Coast Guard stands ready to respond.”
St. Onge issued a stark warning to the public following the rescue, emphasizing that Lake Huron is “not an inland lake or a mill pond” and that “conditions can and do change by the minute.”
The man’s identity was not released by fire officials or the Coast Guard. No further charges or penalties related to the incident have been announced at this time.
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