{"id":201320,"date":"2026-05-24T14:53:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201320\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T14:53:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T14:53:33","slug":"a-miracle-fishermen-rescued-from-lake-erie-including-1-who-treaded-water-for-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201320\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A miracle\u2019: Fishermen rescued from Lake Erie, including 1 who treaded water for hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

KELLEYS ISLAND, Ohio <\/a>(WJW) \u2013 Three fishermen were rescued after their boat capsized, leaving them stranded in Lake Erie for hours struggling to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s honestly a miracle,\u201d said Kelleys Island Police Chief James Bartus. \u201cThe family came up today and they\u2019re just blessed and happy that this all turned out the way it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The men, all relatives, were fishing Tuesday when a storm blew up on the lake and their 17-foot aluminum boat capsized around 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had right around five, six, seven foot waves,\u201d said Bartus.<\/p>\n

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An 81-year-old man and 78-year-old man clung to the boat, but a 65-year old man floated away.<\/p>\n

They had already been in the water for several hours before witnesses spotted them and called for help around 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Kelleys Island first responders rushed to the scene while the Erie County Sheriff\u2019s Department notified the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n

USCG Station Marblehead launched a 45-foot response boat.<\/p>\n

Around 7 p.m., the two older gentlemen were safely pulled from the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when they told us that there was a third victim,\u201d said Bartus. \u201cHe had floated away last and they\u2019d seen he had been floating away from the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Coast Guard quickly dispatched a search and rescue helicopter, which located the third man. The water temperature was just 51 degrees when hypothermia can set in between 15 and 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

By the time the man was pulled from the water, he had been fighting to survive for five long hours.<\/p>\n

The chief explains how he did it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a seat cushion wrapped around his wrist in a figure eight. So that way if he did not make it, we would see the seat cushion,\u201d he said. \u201cHe would wait for a wave to hit and he would yell for help and then the next wave he would spit out the water he\u2019d taken in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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All three men were rushed to the hospital, \u201cvery hypothermic and in stages of shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief said the men are from out-of-town, but they fish off Kelleys Island every year.<\/p>\n

Despite their experience, he said no one was wearing a life jacket, making their survival that much more incredible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, not having life jackets on, which is, you know, critical when you\u2019re being on Lake Erie,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m thankful we have teams in place with Coast Guard, ODNR, our safety services, the sheriff\u2019s office, everybody that was able to communicate together to rescue these three individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the Coast Guard and the chief said it\u2019s important for people to wear life jackets while on the lake because the outcome could\u2019ve been much different.<\/p>\n

He also credits the men for not giving up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be a very tough soul to survive Lake Erie to begin with, especially for that amount of time in that water temperature. That\u2019s a blessing for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 8 Cleveland WJW. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KELLEYS ISLAND, Ohio (WJW) \u2013 Three fishermen were rescued after their boat capsized, leaving them stranded in Lake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[47947,136,89011,138,137,88529,84807,260],"class_list":["post-201320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-coast-guard","tag-erie","tag-erie-county-sheriffs-department","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-james-bartus","tag-kelleys-island","tag-lake-erie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}