Man walked miles, slept in lighthouse before Coast Guard rescue

A 25-year-old man told authorities he walked for more than a day across frozen Lake St. Clair and slept in a lighthouse Wednesday night before U.S. Coast Guard crews rescued him Thursday morning.

Lt. Joshua Zike, commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard ship Neah Bay, said crew members aboard the 140-foot icebreaking tug spotted the man shortly after 9:30 a.m. when they were entering Lake St. Clair from the St. Clair River.

Zike said the man was about a mile and a half off Seaway Island in northern Lake St. Clair.

The ship approached to within about 100 yards of the man and deployed two members of its ice rescue team — petty officers Ethan Fryar and Scott Sjostrom — to make contact with him.

Fryar and Sjostrom determined the man was hypothermic and brought him back to the ship, where they placed him in a hypothermia bag.

"He was in the beginning stages of hypothermia," Zike said. "It took him a long time to formulate his thoughts."

He said the man told crew members he was attempting to travel from Detroit to Toronto over Lake St. Clair.

The man said he departed Detroit about two nights before and had spent Wednesday night in the Crib Lighthouse on Lake St. Clair. Seaway Island is about 20 miles from downtown Detroit.

Zike said the man had a backpack with food and clothes in it, and a sleeping bag and tarp.

The man was about 16 miles from the mouth of the Detroit River, Zike said, and about eight and a half miles from the nearest point of land westward when Coast Guard crews made contact with him.

Sjostrom said the wind chill was about 6 below zero on the lake Thursday. He said the man was not dressed for the weather, and had no flotation or communication devices.

"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."

Zike said the man did not say why he wanted to go to Toronto, or why he chose the route that he did. The man is an American citizen.

The Neah Bay brought the man to shore in Algonac shortly before 12:30 p.m., where he was transferred to paramedics for medical treatment.

"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.

According to a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard Ninth District, the rescue was the first conducted by an ice rescue team deployed from a Great Lakes cutter in more than four years.

Contact Beth LeBlanc at (810) 989-6259 or eleblanc@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @THBethLeBlanc.