GRAND HAVEN, MI – A 97-year-old man who lost his balance and fell around 6 feet into the Grand River is expected to make a full recovery, thanks to the quick actions of a brand-new member of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Fredrick Unger was standing with his walker on the pier next to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Katmai Bay on Tuesday, July 29, for the Coast Guard Festival’s popular ship tours when he lost his balance and fell.
Joseph Turk, 27, a seaman on the Katmai Bay Cutter who has been with the Coast Guard for about seven months, was giving tours on the ship when he said he saw a splash and heard someone yell “man overboard!”
Then, according to protocol, he and others repeated the yell “man overboard” to alert the rest of the ship’s crew to what was going on.
“And then I jumped in the water,” Turk said.
“Ten seconds (after the fall) Seaman Turk came off the bow and got into the water, in between the ship with the gentleman,” said Trevor Tallman, operations petty officer with the USCGC Katmai Bay.
While Turk was holding onto Unger, treading water and trying to keep him afloat, other Coast Guard crew members rushed to the scene, throwing in life jackets and flotation rings to assist with the rescue.
The location between the ship and the pier is very dangerous, Tallman said, since there’s nothing to hold on to and no easy way to get out of the water.
“I saw that he was having a tough time,” Tallman said, so he climbed into the water to assist Turk. “We were able to get the sling around him.”
Using the life rings, the crew on the shore guided Turk and Unger slowly to a ladder several yards away on the pier.
Their clothes had become waterlogged and heavy, making it difficult to lift Unger out of the water and up the ladder.
Finally, after about 15 to 20 minutes in the water, the crew was able to lift Unger with a stokes litter, a piece of equipment used to transport injured people on ships. He was transported by ambulance to North Ottawa Community Hospital in stable condition.
Turk had just recently completed boot camp and had gone through surface swimmer training just days before.
“So if there ever was a good time for something like this to happen, we were ready,” Turk said.
Turk said he had joined the Coast Guard to make a difference.
“Especially straight away like this, you never think something like this could happen,” he said.
Thanks to the quick actions of Turk and the other crew members, Unger’s recovery looks promising.
“We met with the neurosurgeon this morning and he’s got a couple of fractured vertebrae in his neck, and he’s got scrapes and bruises. He has a little bit of water in his lungs, but nothing serious,” said Unger’s son, Michael Unger.
“Miraculously all he’s going to have to do is be in the neck brace for about six to eight weeks,” said Michael Unger.
Fredrick Unger lives with his son Tim and is still fiercely independent, Michael Unger said. But “he doesn’t know how to swim.”
“He’ll have some time in the hospital, some rehab then eventually go back home,” he said.
His extended family lives mostly in West Michigan, including seven children, 17 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
The Coast Guard takes pride in its training to get new crew members up to speed quickly and prepare them for rescue missions, said Jonathan Hickey, commander of the Coast Guard’s Great Lakes District.
He said what’s unique about this event was that the rescue happened at a festival when nobody was expecting an accident.
“It wasn’t in his job description to save peoples’ lives that day. He wasn’t in a ready boat here,” Hickey said of Turk.
“He could have just been a bystander, and nobody would have said, ‘Hey Joe, why didn’t you jump in the water?’”
Instead, his recent training kicked in, Hickey said, saving a life.
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