Man's bid to walk from Detroit to Toronto ends on frozen lake
ALGONAC, Mich. -- A man's plan to walk from Detroit to Toronto ended Thursday in the middle of frozen Lake St. Clair, when an icebreaker spotted him, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
A lookout on the Cutter Neah Bay spotted the 25-year-old man walking on the lake about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, 1 ½ miles from Ontario's Seaway Island, the Coast Guard said in a statement. It said the 140-foot icebreaker sent a crew on foot to check on him.
The crew questioned him, treated him for hypothermia, and "assisted him aboard the cutter," the Coast Guard said.
"He was in the beginning stages of hypothermia," Lt. Joshua Zike, commander of the cutter, told the Times Herald of Port Huron. "It took him a long time to formulate his thoughts."
The man, a U.S. citizen, wasn't dressed for conditions on the lake, had no flotation gear and no form of communication, the Coast Guard said. Zike said he was carrying a backpack with food and clothes, a sleeping bag and tarp.
The man told the Coast Guard that he left Detroit about two nights earlier and spent Wednesday night in the Crib Lighthouse on Lake St. Clair. Seaway Island is about 20 miles from downtown Detroit.
The Coast Guard released a video of the rescue Thursday night:
The cutter docked at Algonac, where emergency medical workers treated the man, the Coast Guard said.
"Most of us joined the Coast Guard to protect life," Zike said. "Our primary mission during the winter months is breaking ice to keep commercial traffic moving, but preserving life will always come first."