SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — Newly-released video shows the moment two people were ejected from a pontoon boat over the 4th of July holiday weekend.
Security video captured the situation at South Beach Pier in South Haven on Saturday.
Sheriff Daniel Abbott says marine deputies were able to help the people quickly because they were right there watching boat traffic.
He says his team is lucky enough to have extra staff that allows them to patrol a lot of water ways.
“As opposed to putting them on the general road, where they're really not needed, we actually put them on the waters because we got a lot of inland lakes in Lake Michigan and Van Buren County. So fortunately, we can saturate these lakes in Lake Michigan with marine deputies,” said Abbott.
Having the extra help comes in handy, as this rescue is the third rescue his department has conducted this summer.
“We had two juveniles that we recently rescued that were taken on water, on a dinghy, getting washed out into the lake. And then we had a paddleboarder from New Jersey, the same type thing here recently, that was in distress, and our deputies happened to be there,” said Abbott.
Because of these rescues, he and others are stressing how dangerous Lake Michigan can be, especially to those coming in from out of town.
“As everybody knows, that's from this area, Lake Michigan, can literally change in a matter of a minute or two. All the rescues we've had this year, everybody's been out of town, out of towners. They're not familiar with the big lake. It's just it's a dangerous Lake, and people just got to be aware of that,” said Abbott.
All of the people rescued this summer are doing okay, the sheriff said.
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