"Did I do my best?"

On September 8, 1860 the steamer Lady Elgin collided with the schooner Augusta a few miles north of Evanston IL. There were 385 passengers on board. Edward Spencer a student at Northwestern came to the shore and for the next six hours dove into the frigid waters over and over again to rescue survivors. Spencer saved 17 passengers, and as he collapsed on the shore he was heard to repeatedly ask “Did I do my best?”. The ordeal left him confined to a wheelchair.
Nearly 150 years later, people are still drowning in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes. They don’t drown in big numbers with tremendous media coverage; they die one or two at a time up and down our coastlines. Their stories are carried by local papers and news outlets but are quickly overshadowed by Brittany’s latest re-hab or Numa-numa‘s you-tube.
As we work to educate the general population and empower surfers and other watermen (and waterwomen) to carry on the lifesaving traditions of Edward Spencer. I often ask myself, “Did I do my best”

Triumph and Tragety: August 1, 2009

Saturday August 1st 2009 I was in Sturgeon Bay MI windsurfing some beautiful Lake Michigan waves. During a break in the action i lamented to my friend Dave Batchelor that a warm summer weekend with waves was one of my greatest joys but that I always worried that somewhere the waves were claiming another life.

While I was carving flowing turns on 8ft rollers 300 miles down the coast a father took his last breath and slipped below the waves in South Haven. 45 year old Martin Jordan had just saved his five children from a rip current along the South Haven pier. As the last child was pulled to safety he slipped below the water. Earlier in the summer, Karl Heinz-Becker an experienced swimmer was caught in a rip current at Warren Dunes and drown. They are two of the more than 20 people who have lost their lives on the beaches of the Great Lakes this year.

Thankfully there were surfers enjoying the waves at Grand Haven and Holland or the Lakes would have claimed even more lives. Alexie Robbert was boogie boarding at Holland State Park and rescued two children caught in a rip current there. Up the Coast in Grand Haven another surfer rescued three more children (and a police officer). More details and pictures here:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/08/swimmers_warned_to_stay_out_of.html
Further up the coast in Muskegon bystanders rescued a women from a rip current.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/08/two_men_save_woman_from_drowni.html

Next weekend I will attend a memorial service for all who have lost their lives to the Lakes, unfortunately the list keeps growing.