An off-duty Huron County Sheriff’s Deputy helped save an 18-year-old girl from death by hypothermia after a Wednesday evening boat ride went awry.
Deputy Jackie Creguer and her family were enjoying time on their friend Pete Monaco’s boat around 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3, when they were flagged down by two riders of a distant watercraft. Monaco’s boat headed toward the pair, noticing as they approached that there was a person in the water next to the personal watercraft.
The personal watercraft was located about 3 miles north of the Port Crescent Day Use Park in Hume Township, in about 35 feet of water, with the craft’s driver, a Rochester man, explaining that he and his 20-year-old niece had been towing her 18-year-old sister behind them on a kneeboard. Doing so, they had somehow crossed over the tow rope, with the watercraft’s propulsion intake sucking up the tow-line and stalling the machine.
When the Monaco party approached them, they had been adrift for about 40 minutes, unable to get the rope free, with the group realizing the 18-year-old was hypothermic. Rushing to get her out of the water, the group had to physically bring her aboard their boat as she was shivering uncontrollably and unable to move herself.
As she was wrapped in towels to warm up, the group also helped the Rochester man dislodge the rope from the propulsion system so the man could head back to his shoreline cottage. Both young women were brought back to shore via the boat, with their uncle and mother meeting them at the dock and thanking the group.
Huron County Sheriff Kelly Hanson noted that the family feared that if the girl had been in the water longer, she would have died, a fear not unfounded, as it’s believed that another hour in the water would have killed her. The boat crew reported that at last contact with the 18-year-old, she had warmed up enough that she wouldn’t be seeking medical treatment.
It was also learned that the trio had been passed by a pontoon boat earlier in their struggle, but the pontoon had not stopped to help. Sheriff Hanson wishes to remind boaters that “they have a duty to lend aid in situations like this.”
