Lansing man fails to report boating incident, prompting search on Lake Huron

A Lansing man drew the ire of Huron County authorities after he was thrown from a small boat and swam to shore without reporting the incident to authorities. A search was launched when witnesses called 911 to report an unmanned boat off the coast of Caseville Township.

According to a news release from Huron County Sheriff Kelly Hanson, officers responded to the 9000 block of Sand Point in Caseville Township at approximately 9:44 p.m. Saturday, where residents observed a small boat driving in circles about two miles north of the lakeshore. No occupants were visible in the boat.

Officials suspected the boat’s occupant may have been ejected from the boat, and by nightfall, the sheriff’s 28-foot patrol boat and its crew arrived in the area to begin the search. A Coast Guard boat arrived a short time later from Tawas to join the search, Hanson said.

At about 2:30 a.m., the search was called off due to poor visibility. Huron County officials and emergency responders awaited reports of a missing boater or similar information. At 5:45 a.m., Hanson began his own search at daybreak in the Caseville patrol boat.

At about 6:35 a.m., Hanson spotted a motorized Zodiac inflatable boat floating in shallow water near shore, about 1.5 miles south of Caseville.

Caseville Fire Chief Ben Willenberg responded by land and pulled the boat to shore after Huron County Emergency Management located Hanson’s location.

Willenberg noted that the boat had an empty gas tank and the engine was engaged, indicating that it was likely the boat searchers were looking for. The boat was registered to a person from Macomb, and dispatch began searching through various sources for possible connections to Huron County.

At approximately 7:45 a.m., the sheriff’s office learned that the boat operator was OK and had swum to shore the night before after being thrown from the boat. At 8 a.m., the sheriff’s office confirmed the information and the boat operator arrived at the scene to interview and recover the boat.

The boat operator, a 45-year-old man from Lansing, said he was thrown from the boat when he hit a wave on the way to Caseville. Because the man was not connected to the engine’s emergency shutdown cord, the boat continued to go in circles, hitting him at least once.

“For some reason, he didn’t see the need to call 911 that night that he had abandoned his boat offshore in the dark and was driving in circles,” Hanson said. “However, alcohol appears to have played a large role in this incident.”

“Nevertheless, we are glad that this incident ended without any real injuries or, worse, deaths. We are also glad that a large-scale search operation with many resources did not have to be initiated, as I had already started to take those precautions. But the whole situation could have easily been avoided if better judgment and decisions had been made.”

Enforcement measures have been taken against the man “because of his carelessness,” Hanson added.