By KATIE FINKBEINER
Capital News Service
LANSING – Drowning has been the number-one cause of death in children ages 1 to 4 and the second-leading cause of death for children between 5 and 14 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Since 2010, there have been more than 1,300 fatal drownings in the Great Lakes,” said Bob Pratt, the director of education and executive director of the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project. “A little over 1% of them were wearing life jackets.”
Recent drownings have occurred both on the Great Lakes and Michigan’s inland lakes and rivers. Among them:
- On Sept. 21, an unnamed 44-year-old man drowned at Versluis Park in Plainfield Township near Grand Rapids.
- The body of Brady Donnelly, 25, was discovered by the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team less than 35 minutes after he drowned on Sept. 15 in a pond in Tecumseh Park.
- Gavin Miller, 21, fell from a fishing boat that capsized on Sept. 23 in Lower Evans Lake in Martiny Township, east of Big Rapids.
- On Sept. 18, a body recovered from Lake Michigan near St. Joseph was identified as 69-year-old Douglas Greyerbiehl.
In Oakland County, this year as of late August there were 11 reported drownings. Last year, four drownings were reported.
Pratt said, “People think drowning is waving and yelling for a long time like on TV shows. Unfortunately, drowning happens very quickly, typically within less than a minute.”
According to Alex Manion, a meteorologist at the Detroit/Pontiac office of the National Weather Service, fall weather creates choppier conditions in the Great Lakes, which include creation of rip currents.
The combination of waves plus wind speed and direction “creates an imbalance of water that piles up,” Manion said. “Underneath, or below the surface, water will pull backwards,” which can pull people further away from the shore.
Swimming pool water is always “flat, warm and crystal clear,” Pratt said, and “people think they’re a good swimmer because they can swim in these conditions. But then they get out in water like Lake Michigan where the water can be rough and can have dangerous currents.”
According to Pratt, even strong swimmers can drown from exhaustion.
“Knowing what your true swimming ability is in swimming out in rough conditions is a different skill set than swimming in a backyard pool,” Pratt said.
Manion says a challenging aspect of rip currents is their formation of a narrow current that’s hard to see with the naked eye.
“What we try to tell people is to swim parallel with the beach to get out of a rip current, then swim toward the shore once you’re out of the current,” Manion said
Another issue of concern to some water safety officers is recreational boat safety on inland waterways.
“When people are on the water for recreational purposes, oftentimes we see alcohol involved,” said Matt Saxton, the executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association and a retired Calhoun County sheriff. With the greater use of kayaks and canoes over the years, sheriffs have stated that they’re seeing an increase in calls for rescues.
Sheriffs’ departments are responsible for marine safety and enforcement on the state’s inland waters.
“We have to make sure they drink responsibly on the waterways and make sure they are following all of the safety rules,” Saxton said of boaters.
According to the Coast Guard’s 2023 Recreational Boating Statistics report, Michigan last year had 21 deaths. The national recreational boating death count was 564.
In 2022, there were 17 recorded boating deaths in Michigan out of 636 nationwide.
The Department of Natural Resources recently announced that it has begun removing swim buoys from many state park beaches. Annually, the department removes buoys due to changing water temperatures, high winds and waves during the off-season.
Buoys mark swimming area boundaries, indicating water less than 5 feet deep and a lower risk of dangerous water conditions.
Pratt said one approach to improved water safety in Michigan is through legislation.
“There is very little public education on water safety,” Pratt said. “We’d love for all children to learn the water safety strategy of flip, float and follow.”
He said “flip, float and follow” means to flip onto your back to breathe and calm down, float to conserve energy, notice if you’re being pulled by a current and follow a path back to safety where you’re not fighting a current.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Roger Victory, R-Hudsonville, would require the Education Department to develop a water safety program for schools. The program would include education on swimming supervision, floatation devices, CPR and more.
The bill has been pending in the Senate Education Committee since February. The cosponsors are Sens. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing; Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit; Sylvia Santana, D-Detroit; Paul Wojno, D-Warren; Kevin Daley, R-Lum; and Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak.