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Marine Incident Tied Up Huron County Sheriffs and Coast Guard for Several Hours
Press Release/Mike Kaufman
Mon, 08 Jul 2024 20:55:38 EDT
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This past Saturday night (July 6th) at 9:44 PM, deputies responded to the 9000 block of Sand Point in Caseville Twp., where a small boat was being witnessed by residents going around in circles, around 2 miles offshore (north). No occupants could be seen on it either.
The suspicion was whoever may have been likely had been thrown off. With total darkness soon after setting in, the 28' Caseville Patrol Boat and crew arrived in the area to begin searching, along with a Coast Guard Boat arriving from Tawas a little while later. At approximately 2:30 AM, the search had to be suspended due to poor visibility. Dispatchers and deputes then patiently waited for any information to come in about a possible missing boater, or anything related to the situation, with nothing coming in.
At 5:45 AM the Huron County Sheriff's department began searching with the Caseville Patrol Boat. At around 6:35 AM, Sheriff Kelly Hanson located a motorized inflatable Zodiac type boat, drifting close to shore in shallow water, around 1.5 miles south of the Caseville. Caseville Fire Chief Ben Willenberg responded by land from directions dispatch had plotted of my location and pulled the boat ashore. He found that the boat had an empty gas tank and the motor was in gear, which indicated it was likely the boat we were looking for. The registration came back to an individual out of Macomb Michigan and dispatch began looking for possible connections to our county through different sources.
At approximately 7:45 AM, information was received 2nd hand that the boat's operator was ok, and had swam to shore last night after being ejected from the it. At 8:00 AM, that information was confirmed and the operator responded to the scene to be interviewed and to retrieve the boat. The 45 year old male from Lansing stated he was thrown from the boat after hitting a wave while enroute to Caseville. And being he didn't have the engine's emergency cutoff tether connected to him, the boat continued on in circles. It even ended up hitting him at least once.
For whatever reason, he felt no necessity that night to report to 911 that he abandoned his boat in the darkness offshore, going around in circles. However, it appears alcohol had a large role in this incident. Regardless, Sheriff Hanson is glad this incident ended without any real injuries, or even worse, death. Sheriff Hanson was also glad that a large scale search effort involving many resources didn't have to be initiated. But the whole situation could have easily been prevented if better judgement had been used and better decisions had been made.
Enforcement action has been taken against the man for his carelessness.
