For the second time in a week, emergency crews rescued two men from the frigid waters of Michigan’s Saginaw Bay after they plunged through the unstable ice — the same two men they rescued in a previous incident.
The two anglers were trying to retrieve items they had to abandon during their first rescue when they needed to be rescued yet again.
The first rescue occurred on Sunday, when the two men — identified as 23-year-old Johnathon Doughty and 29-year-old Nicholas Mullins — had to leave behind snowmobiles, fishing equipment and a pop-up camper due to a large crack in the ice, Bay County Sheriff Troy R. Cunningham tells MILive. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a third person with the men on that date as well.
“They took a 12-foot flat-bottom boat to cross the water out to the ice floe, when it capsized in rough water,” Cunningham said. One of the two men’s cellphones still worked and he managed to call 911, giving updates on their location in the worsening conditions.
The U.S. Coast Guard also responded and deployed an airboat and a helicopter. The men were found about a mile and a half into the bay and were in the water for just over an hour, the sheriff said.
“They were rushed to the shore, placed in waiting ambulances, and taken to a nearby hospital for what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries,” Cunningham said. “They’re being kept overnight for observation.”
The two did have sense enough to be wear life vests, without which the sheriff says they would not have survived.