Lake Michigan is the deadliest lake in the United States. It has more drownings annually than any other lake. I was almost one of them.
It is doubtful that many people (if any) will read this story. Regardless, for those who do, this is a story worth telling, by anybody’s standards. It just so happens that it involves me.
The story takes place at Peterson Park. A beautiful little Township Park in northern Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. Due to its remoteness, small size, and the fact that one has to climb a few hundred feet down a set of stairs to get to it, the beach is usually completely empty. You can often look in both directions and not see a single person. This was the case on the day this took place.
My mom, my brother, and I traveled to Peterson Park to enjoy a day at the beach. My mom was particularly interested in finding some of the rare Petoskey stones, unique to Michigan. As can be seen in my photo, the beach is nothing but stones. So, mom had plenty of opportunities. All my brother and I were interested in was frolicking around in the water and waves. Which is what we set off to do as soon as we got there. Both of us, in our cut-off denim shorts (it was the mid-1970s), headed straight for the water while mom walked along the waterline, bucket in hand, searching for the ever-elusive Petoskey stones.
It was, as it always is along the coast of the Leelanau Peninsula, very windy. The waves were massive. Each one crashed loudly onto the rocky shore. The water churned and frothed as it receded back to the lake.
Because of the position of the Leelanau Peninsula on Lake Michigan, the waves are powerful here. Between them crashing ashore and the ice grinding in winter, all the rocks have lost their jagged edges and are smooth and round. Even the sharp edges of broken glass are softened by this process. Known as beach glass, I have a small collection of different colors of it that I’ve gathered over the years.
My brother and I had been playing around in the water and waves for a while. I was six years old at the time, and my brother was twelve. We would swim out a little way and body surf the large waves back to the shore. It was great fun. At one point, I decided to rest and sat down in water that was about a foot deep and just let the waves crash over me. It felt good. Occasionally, one would push me around the rocky shore a little, but I was easily able to recover. We were having a lot of fun.
But the fun ended for me as two large waves converged on top of me at the same time, knocking me over in the water. The waves had come together and were now rushing back out, forming a rip current, a powerful, fast-moving channel of water that flows back out from the shore (in the photo below, you can clearly see three rips), and I was firmly in its grasp. It happened fast, and no one saw. Not my brother or mom. There was no one else at the beach that day to see either.
The rip current swept me away from the shore violently, all the while dragging me, bouncing across the rocky bottom. It held me underwater for what felt like an eternity before finally letting me go. I don’t know how long I was underwater, but I do remember feeling desperate for a breath of air. I fought my way back to the surface and found myself about fifty yards from the shore. I was also in about thirty feet of water. I was alone, scared, and treading water to keep my head above the huge waves. All I wanted to do was get back to the beach, which seemed like it was miles away.
To this day, I don't know what my little brain was thinking about this situation. All I can remember is doing what came naturally to me, and that was to swim. I grew up spending the summers at our cottage on a lake, and by this age, I had already become a confident swimmer. So, I began swimming towards the shore – steady, rhythmic, and methodical. It was fatiguing. When I could, I used the waves to help propel me forward. Occasionally, I would get pulled backward by the current of a wave rushing back out from the shore. But I slowly made progress anyway. Swimming that distance in those conditions took what seemed like forever and sapped all of my energy.
Eventually, I made it back to shore. The first person I saw was my brother - who hadn't even noticed I was missing, being that he was completely engrossed in playing in the large waves. When he finally noticed me, I was body-surfing a wave into the shore, and he complimented me on how well I was doing. At that time, he didn’t know what had happened or how close to drowning I had come.
I stood up warily. That's when he noticed that my right shoulder had been skinned raw and was bleeding. Puzzled, he asked me what had happened. I couldn't get the words out from choking back my tears. I didn't want to cry, but I was very shaken up, and it was hard not to. I managed to gather myself enough to tell him that I had been swept away by a rip current and had to swim back to shore. I couldn’t hold back anymore and burst into tears, trembling uncontrollably. My brother grabbed my arm and said, "c'mon! We gotta go tell mom!"
I don’t recall much else about that day. Except they kept asking me, “What happened, again?” and I remember having to repeat myself more than a few times. While they never said it, I suppose they were checking to see if my story was consistent because they didn’t see it happen.
All these years later, I still have the scar on my right shoulder from scraping it against the rocks on the bottom as I was being dragged out into deeper water. Occasionally, I will have a dream or slight nightmare about this, where I wake with a start. I can feel the sensation of water in my nose. Fortunately, they don’t bother me too much anymore. I have EMDR therapy to thank for that!
This experience never deterred me from swimming or made me afraid of water. I spent a lot of time in the water growing up. I grew to become an exceptionally strong and confident swimmer. I learned how to better identify wave and beach conditions that may produce rip currents. I always remained hypervigilant when I took my girls to the beach. I wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to one of them. I was fortunate that day.
Later in life, in my career in law enforcement, I had the opportunity to complete a rigorous water rescue/submerged vehicle rescue training program. The program pushed me to the very limits of my swimming abilities. I learned a lot about myself. Not long after completing it, I earned a life-saving award for rescuing a man who had fallen through the ice on a lake.
I never gave up and never became afraid of water. I am grateful that because I never gave up, I was able to help someone else get to shore. Because I know what it feels like to be out there, alone and afraid.
Great story and well told Chris. You were very fortunate to survive that. 😀
What a scary experience, Chris! I probably would have developed a fear of water.