A snowmobile trip off Mackinac Island ended with a Coast Guard rescue after a man became stranded on drifting ice during a whiteout blizzard.

Mackinac Island Fire Chief Jason St. Onge said fire officials were alerted at about 4:40 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, that a man had become lost on the ice, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“The man was told (through a translator over the phone) to stay put, and that rescue was coming to him,” St. Onge said.

Firefighters then advised the man to use his GPS to move toward their location while St. Onge and five other firefighters went out on the ice as part of the rescue crew.

Officials said the rescue moved slowly because of waist-deep snow and other conditions that made it difficult. The man then reached open water and became stuck on a piece of drifting ice, prompting a Coast Guard rescue.

The Coast Guard said blizzard conditions made an air rescue unsafe, so it deployed the USCG Cutter Mackinaw, an icebreaking vessel. The cutter located the man and brought him and his snowmobile aboard the ship.

The man’s identity was not released by the Coast Guard or fire officials. He was reported to be in stable condition.

St. Onge also told the Free Press that officials warned the man not to go onto the ice, but he went anyway and became stranded about 1.6 kilometres off shore.

“The ice is no joke, not an inland lake or a mill pond. Conditions can and do change by the minute. Not one entity endorses the ice, nor is anyone in charge of its safety or security,” St. Onge said in a news release.

Mackinac Island is in Lake Huron and has been a Michigan state park since 1895.

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