Mail boat rescues man trying to swim across Detroit River from Canada to U.S.

DETROIT (WWJ) — A man is expected to be okay after being saved from the Detroit River late Monday night, thanks to the crew aboard the J.W. Westcott.

A two-person crew was aboard the J.W. Westcott — a boat that delivers mail to freighters traveling on the Great Lakes — around 11 p.m. Monday when they heard a call go out on the marine VHF radio about a person seen swimming in the river.

Officials had been asking one of the freighters to keep an eye out for the swimmer, who was heading from Windsor to Detroit.

Captain Neil Schultheiss told WWJ Newsradio 950 he and his deckhand, JC, spotted the man and pulled him aboard.

He said while the swimmer was cold, he did not appear injured when they pulled him aboard. The man, who seemed disoriented and agitated, said he was an American and that he needed to get to Florida, where his father lives.

Schultheiss said Canadian authorities had contacted the J.W. Westcott and asked for the man to be returned to Windsor, but by that time, a Detroit fire boat had already reached them.

“We transferred the man to the Detroit fire boat that had an EMS unit waiting back at the station, so he was transported back to the U.S. side by the Detroit fire boat,” Schultheiss said.

Schultheiss said the man was lucky to survive.

“He was swimming inside a life ring. Apparently somebody in Windsor had thrown him a life ring when he jumped in the water. And it was probably a good thing — the water’s only about 73 degrees right now and the current’s pretty swift, so most people that jump in, it’s very difficult for them to stay afloat without some kind of flotation like a life ring," he said.

The man, whose name and age have not been released, was taken to the hospital and is expected to recover.

The J.W. Westcott is the same boat that rescued two people in the summer of 2023, including a construction worker who fell from the Ambassador Bridge.

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