Coast Guard Stops Dazed Man's Walk to Canada Across Frozen Lake

The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Neah Bay on Thursday rescued a 25-year-old man who was attempting to walk across Lake St. Clair from Detroit to Toronto. (Photo via U.S. Coast Guard Great Lakes Facebook page)

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A 25-year-old man who spent two or three days walking across frozen Lake St. Clair in an attempt to get to Toronto, sleeping in lighthouses along the way, was dazed and had difficulty formulating his thoughts when rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard in sub-zero wind chill temperatures Thursday.

Crews aboard the 140-foot Coast Guard ice-breaking tug Neah Bay saw the man walking about a mile and a half off Seaway Island in north Lake St. Clair about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to a Port Huron Times Herald report.

Lt. Joshua Zike, commanding officer of the Neah Bay, said petty officers Ethan Fryar and Scott Sjostrom, both certified ice rescuers, walked across the ice and reached the man just in time.

For crew members who spend most of their day breaking ice to make way for commercial shipping vessels, “it was extremely rewarding to be able to put into practice what we trained for and then, ultimately, at the end of the day, to save someone’s life,” Zike said.

The wind chill on Lake St. Clair was -6 Thursday, and the man was in the beginning stages of hypothermia when rescuers reached him.

“It took him a long time to formulate his thoughts,” Zike said.

“When we got to him, you could tell the cold was getting to him,” Sjostrom told MLive.com. “He was very lethargic. ... He was shivering very bad.”

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No one knows why the man, an American citizen and Michigan resident, wanted to get to Canada, or why he chose to walk across the lake.

He apparently had been walking for two or three days. When he left Detroit, he had a backpack filled with food, clothes, sleeping bag and tarp, but was dressed inappropriately for frigid cold temperatures in street clothing. The Coast Guard said he didn’t have a cell phone or lifesaving floatation device.

“If he would have been out there for hours longer he would have been in bad shape,” Sjostrom said. “He’s lucky we were where we were because if he would have gone through the ice or gotten lost, there was no one out there to find him.”

Thursday’s rescue – the first by a Great Lakes ice cutter in four years – was a chance for them to do what had attracted them to the Coast Guard in the first place, Zike said.

“Most of us joined the Coast Guard to protect life,” he said. “Our primary mission during the winter months is breaking ice to keep commercial traffic moving, but preserving life will always come first.”

The man was brought ashore about 12:30 p.m. Thursday and transferred to paramedics for medical treatment.