With Great Lakes drownings spiking, rescuers look to education, technology

SHEBOYGAN - Jamie Racklyeft knows he's a lucky man, that he should have died on a warm summer day while swimming in Lake Michigan.

He knows within minutes after two strangers in a kayak pulled him to shore, a 16-year-old boy drowned in the same rip current that almost killed Racklyeft.

With the number of drownings in the Great Lakes spiking 78% last year compared with the previous year, and another mild winter likely meaning warmer water temperatures and more people venturing out into the lakes this summer, Racklyeft knows it could be another bad year for drownings.

Last year, 98 people drowned in the Great Lakes, including 46 in Lake Michigan and nine in Lake Superior. In 2015, 55 people lost their lives in the Great Lakes, 25 in Lake Michigan and two in Lake Superior.

Why the sharp increase?

"Air temperatures were warmer, which drew more people to the beach, and water temperatures were warmer, which drew more people on the beach into the water," said Racklyeft, executive director of the Great Lakes Water Safety Consortium.

Meanwhile, water levels have continued to rise over the last few years from historically low levels in the Great Lakes. That means wave energy comes closer to shore where unsuspecting swimmers and waders can quickly get dragged out.

"It creates dangerous rip currents where people get caught and get trapped. If they don't have a flotation device like a life jacket, they become one of the victims. They're all preventable. That's the frustrating thing," Racklyeft said Friday during a water safety conference in Sheboygan.

Last year, half of drownings in the Great Lakes were related to rip currents.

The National Weather Service in Sullivan, which handles forecasts for southeastern Wisconsin, recently began issuing beach hazard and swim risk information between Memorial Day and mid-September. A recreational beach forecast with wind speed and direction, wave period and height and swim risk is issued daily at 4 a.m. and updated in the afternoon, said Marc Kavinsky, marine program leader at the  weather service's Sullivan office.

The recreational beach forecast was started in response to drownings in the Great Lakes as well as elsewhere, Kavinsky said in an interview following his presentation at the water safety conference. Forecasts are issued for specific beaches with water temperatures, UV index, maximum air temperatures and wave height and frequency.

The average surface temperature of Lake Michigan, which is compiled from daily temperature readings, was 52 degrees last year, four degrees higher than in 2015.

Beach hazard statements are issued when winds, waves and currents make it risky for swimmers. Wisconsin doesn't get them often, Kavinsky said, because weather patterns typically move west to east, making it more hazardous for swimmers on the Michigan side of Lake Michigan.

"It's nice to have the water levels higher but that brings more cautions — waves crashing against piers and crashing against the shore," Kavinsky said.

Deadly currents

Racklyeft decided to wade into Lake Michigan at Van's Beach in Leland, Mich., in August 2012. It was a windy, warm day and Racklyeft, a communications strategist for the University of Michigan, only planned to splash around a bit. Before he realized what was happening, the water was up to his chest, then his neck and then he was treading water. He realized he was caught in a rip current and knew not to fight it, to swim to the side and perhaps get out of it.

But the waves were relentless. Unlike bigger ocean swells, smaller waves on the Great Lakes usually break with more frequency and every five or six seconds. Racklyeft was getting pummeled.

"I came to the realization that this was it, I wasn't going to get out of this. This was the way I was going to die. It was an unbelievably scary experience to think — this is it," said Racklyeft, who related his near-death experience at the conference. 

"Everything went dark and I could only hear muffled voices. I couldn't see. I could hear them say 'are you OK?' I said 'I must be dead.' They said 'two brave strangers in a kayak saved you.'"

Racklyeft admits he has survivor's guilt because of the drowning death 45 minutes later of a teenager at the same beach. That's the reason he's made it his mission to educate people about the dangers of rip currents and to wear life vests.

Water drones

Dozens of people from county parks departments, law enforcement and rescue agencies and others attended the two-day conference to learn about the latest life-saving technology. Among the demonstrations were teams from Michigan Tech and the Great Lakes Unmanned Systems Center, which showed how water drones can be used to save potential drowning victims.

Someone who is drowning often has no strength left to wave their hands or scream to alert others, and by the time 911 is called and law enforcement arrives, it's a body recovery instead of a rescue. Sometimes rescuers are bystanders who try to swim out, are caught in the same rip current and then become victims themselves.

But what if a life-saving drone could be thrown into the water and then maneuvered out to the victim?

Michigan Tech students are working on a drone that can be used as a life raft, cheap and affordable enough that they can be kept at popular swimming beaches or in squad car trunks and used very quickly.

"It's like a mechanized life ring," said Andrew Barnard, leader of the SENSE Enterprise Team at Michigan Tech. "If you've got someone 100 yards offshore, it takes away the danger of swimming out to them or the time it takes to get a boat. A life ring can only be thrown maybe 25 yards and if it's windy it's hard to get the life ring to the person."

The Michigan Tech water drone prototype, which students dubbed Nautical Emergency Rescue Drone (NERD), uses plastic PVC piping, low-cost remote vehicle propellers and the same controls used for remote-controlled planes and boats.

Jeffrey Loman demonstrated a $10,000 water drone called E.M.I.L.Y. that has been used extensively at beaches in California. The 4-foot-long yellow buoys can travel up to 22 mph through waves and rip currents and carry a life vest and helmet out to victims, who can hang on until a boat arrives or possibly get towed to shore.

Following the drownings of two people off Little Presque Isle in Lake Superior last summer, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community bought two of the devices, which are believed to be the only two in the Great Lakes, Loman said before throwing one of the buoys into a small lake in Sheboygan and demonstrating its capabilities.

"Two down and maybe hundreds and thousands of these (E.M.I.L.Y. devices) to go in the Great Lakes. But many communities are small and can't afford these," said Loman.