The 42-year-old man, whom police identified only as Jason, had gone missing in Lake Erie on Thursday near Erieau.
A boater who went missing on Lake Erie near Erieau on Thursday was found safe early Friday near Port Glasgow, more than 20 kilometers away, authorities say.
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The man, whom Ontario Provincial Police identified only as 42-year-old Jason, was one of five people operating separate personal watercrafts who were leaving the Rondeau Bay channel into Erie on Thursday when one of the machines struck a water hazard and became disabled.
One person became separated from the group after continuing into the lake, while the others returned to the marina with the vessel, said police, who were notified just before 3 pm
Police, who’d released an image of the man and the personal watercraft he had been operating, said the missing man was was located safe early Friday near the shore of Lake Erie, east of Port Glasgow.
In a video posted by the OPP to X, Dan, the man’s father, said family members found Jason, who stayed with his personal watercraft.
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“It was a miracle he was found,” Dan said in the video. “He was so far from where he was last seen.”
The Canadian and US coast guards, along with staff from nearby Rondeau Provincial Park and other emergency responders, had searched for the man. The OPP thanked everyone who took part in the effort.
The Erieau-Rondeau Bay area, with its park and beaches, is a popular summer recreation destination south of Chatham for boaters, wind-surfers and swimmers.
The “positive outcome” in the search for the man, as police called it, stands in sharp contrast to an already-heavy toll that summer has taken in the lakes and waterways of Southwestern Ontario, with the season little more than half over.
Earlier this week, a 66-year-old Huron County woman died in hospital after she was pulled from the Goderich harbor in Lake Huron on Wednesday.
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Wednesday, an unidentified 16-year-old from Tilbury died in Erie in Lakeshore, in Essex County.
Two London-area residents died in the region’s Great Lakes waters last month, including a 57-year-old London kayaker in Lake Huron near Grand Bend and a 14-year-old London boy who went swimming in Lake Erie off Port Stanley but did our resurface. In both cases, major searches were launched.
A month earlier, in June, a 32-year-old swimmer died after he went missing in Erie’s waters off Leamington.
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