Overview
- The 240-foot cutter Mackinaw deployed its ice-rescue team to reach a 55-year-old found about a mile west of Sunset Rock.
- Whiteout conditions with winds gusting up to 50 mph created hazardous ice and prevented a safe helicopter response.
- Mackinac Island firefighters attempted an on-ice approach through waist-deep drifts as dispatch tracked their movement in near-zero visibility.
- After initially being told to stay put, the man tried to navigate toward rescuers via GPS, encountered open water, and became stranded on a drifting floe.
- The crew brought the man aboard, recovered his snowmobile, and provided first-level medical care; officials cautioned that rapidly changing Great Lakes ice remains dangerous and said the cutter’s proximity likely averted a fatality.