Positivity: Rescued fisherman recounts 24 hours adrift on Lake Erie
July 4, 2009
….. (Roy) Letson, on his first venture onto Lake Erie for walleye, had left Sterling State Park in Monroe at 8 a.m. Thursday with his father-in-law, Douglas Whittaker, 76, of Eaton Rapids, and Whittaker’s friends, Larry Vert, 64, a retired Lansing accountant, and Ronnie Miller, 63, also of Eaton Rapids. All four are in Mercy Hospital in Monroe today in stable condition, hooked up to IVs to replenish fluids lost during their Lake Erie odyssey.
They’d hauled in their limit of fish, 20 fat walleye stored in coolers as they headed back to port Thursday evening.
And that’s what they think was their downfall.
“Maybe we had too much weight on the front of the boat, we had our fish up there,” Letson said. “We were all done, coming in. It was real fun, we were having a good time.”
The first wave hit, drenching the front of the boat. Then the second. And the third. The boat capsized — and took their radios and safety equipment underwater. Letson, pulled out his cell phone and held it in the air as the waves hit, trying to keep it dry. But it was either save the phone, or save himself.
He pulled himself onto the hull, what became the men’s floating island through Thursday night’s darkness.
“We were just mainly concentrating on staying afloat,” said Letson, who perched on the end near the motor. “We weren’t worried about sinking, but just hanging on. If you weren’t ready, you’d get knocked off.”Three times, the waves swept Letson away.
“The first time I was able to turn around and grab the boat,” he said. “The second time, one of the guys grabbed my life jacket and pulled me back. The third time my father-in-law grabbed my foot.”
Letson said the men did a lot of thinking — and praying — sitting in the darkness.
“This was my first time being out on the lake fishing with these guys; I didn’t say very much,” he said. “I was just watching for waves, trying to stay awake, try not to think about being hungry. But there was a lot of stuff going through my mind, praying, just thinking about little random things.
“We were examining ourselves, doing our own soul searching and getting ourselves right with God,” he said. “We’re all Christians, but there are things in our life we have to get right too.
“I wasn’t scared,” he said. “I was just ok. God’s in control.”
Back on shore, Letson’s wife, Sharon, and her step-mother, Whittaker’s wife, stayed in the Lansing area, knowing there was nothing they could do until they got word from the Coast Guard — good or bad.
“The thought kept crossing my mind, ‘This is so unreal, this is so ridiculous, this is not what I should be doing at this time — waiting for news,’” Sharon Letson said this morning. “The more time that passed during the day (Friday), it’s like, ‘Why can they not find them?’”
But the men’s families kept hoping for the best.
“These guys grew up on farms; they’re very resourceful,” Sharon said. “If something happens, ‘Ok, now what do we need to do to fix it?’ They don’t just give up and let the circumstances dictate what they do.”
As daylight broke, the men focused their eyes to the sky, flailing their arms when they saw searchers flying overhead in the distance, disappointed each time one turned away.
By Friday evening, one of the men’s heart condition and lack of medication began to affect him.
“It was getting down to ‘You’ve gotta do something to help,’” Letson said. “It got to the point where he couldn’t move his legs. We’d grab onto his pants and kind of shook them.”
With Middle Sister Island off in the distance, Letson prepared to dive into the water when they drifted close enough.
“All of a sudden the wind shifted toward to the northwest, and we started drifting away,” Letson said. “But I think it was about a half-hour later when the Monroe County helicopter flew over and spotted us.
“Oh man, that was just…,” Letson said, unable to find the words. “Well, leading up to that point, there was a lot of other aircraft, some flew directly over us and kept going. So when we heard that and all of sudden he started circling us, we breathed a sigh of relief: ‘Oh we made it, we did it.’”
Sharon Letson said she stayed calm because she kept receiving updates from searchers — and from those who put the men’s names on prayer lists and prayer chains.
“We really want to say how thankful we are to the Coast Guard and all the organizations that searched,” she said. “And all those people who prayed for them, we’re so thankful for them.”
Emotions were high Friday night when she first saw her husband, the father of three girls and step-father to her three children, in an emergency room hospital bed in Monroe.
Letson and Whitaker could be released from the hospital later today.
“I’m thinking that whole time, ‘Maybe that’s the last time I’m going to say anything to him,’” Sharon Letson said. “So after all that time, seeing that person again, it’s very emotional — a lot of hugs, a lot of tears. All that tension is all building up: ‘I want to see my family, I want to see my girls again. He did say that he really wanted to see me and he really wanted to see the girls. I think you think about that the whole time.”
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