Danger can be mitigated, too.

February 10, 2017

Gladstone — Michigan (click here) Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Patrick Hartsig on Sunday rescued a 10-year-old boy who had run away from his family near Gladstone in Delta County.

The incident was reported at about 4 p.m. The boy, whose name was not being released, had run away from the Log Cabin Grill and Bar, which is situated south of Gladstone, along Lake Michigan.

To reach the lake, the boy had to cross four busy lanes of traffic on U.S. 2. His mother last saw him heading east across the ice.

Hartsig had been working snowmobile patrol in adjacent Alger County.

“On my way home, I heard a call on Delta dispatch of a runaway special needs boy that was somewhere south of Gladstone, on the ice on Little Bay de Noc,” Hartsig said. “I checked in with dispatch as I was near Hunter’s Point and launched my sled.”

Hunter’s Point has a boating launch site on the Stonington Peninsula side of the bay.

“With Conservation Officer Hartsig being out there on a regular basis, he had up-to-date accurate knowledge of potential bad ice areas,” said Lt. Eugene “Skip” Hagy, a district law supervisor with the DNR Law Enforcement Division’s district 2, which covers the easternmost six counties in the Upper Peninsula. “Normally, there is a shipping channel open in this area, but he knew it hadn’t been used in a few weeks, which allowed a more direct response.”

It wasn’t long before Hartsig located the boy....