Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/orange-and-white-yarn-on-white-textile-2587457/
Lake Michigan has been a hot spot for vacationing Hoosiers for many years. But the concerning number of drownings in the rocky waters—41 in 2023 alone—has caused two members of the Indiana Senate to take action.
Senate Enrolled Act 253 went into effect Monday. The bill requires all piers and public access sites to have at least one life preserver. It was authored by Sen. Rodney Pol, D-Chesterton, and Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange, chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee.
Pol grew up in Northwest Indiana by Lake Michigan and witnessed many dangerous situations.
“I had consistently watched like, summer after summer, you know, you’d hear about it in the news or you’d be out there and then you just hear the ambulances and fire trucks and, you know, it was just chaos out at the beach,” he said. “You saw, you know, some poor mother or some poor family members screaming, you know, for their loved one. It just rocked you, and it was always just a terrifying thing.”
When Pol came into office, he was approached by a woman at an event, and it proved an extraordinary interaction.
“A woman came up to me and said, ‘Hey listen, you know, congratulations getting caucus, but I need you to pass this bill for me,’” he said. “And it was the first time I had someone from, you know, the general public that literally gave me a bill, like handed me a bill that had just been passed in Illinois.”
The woman had a partner who had passed away from drowning and a sister who was a drowning survivor and part of a nonprofit that collected data from the Great Lakes. It found Northwest Indiana to be the most dangerous due to its hazardous currents.
“You know, in Lake Michigan you have a current that comes from the east and a current that comes from the west, and when they meet, that water has to go somewhere. And that creates that current that pulls people out,” Pol said.
After looking at the bill and speaking to his staff attorney, Pol turned to Glick for her insight.
While Glick grew up around gentler waters, her teenage years were spent witnessing Lake Michigan’s strong currents, which pushed her to help on the issue.
“I grew up on inland lakes, so we never had currents like that. We didn’t swim in rivers. We swam in still water,” she said. “But you know, as a youngster, we, you know, and teenagers, we always went to the Dunes and we went up to the Lake. And so when he brought it up to the attention of the committee and told me about the bill, I was only too happy to join with it.”
Due to extreme currents, the law’s required “public rescue equipment, including at least one ring life buoy” must have a rope attached so a victim can grab onto it and the person pulling them can have something to grab onto.
“Because what usually happens is they get caught in the undertow, they get carried out toward the middle of the Lake, you know, out to deeper water, and that’s where the difficulty, you know, develops, is the fact that they don’t stay close to shore,” Glick said.
“It’s not just a drop-off situation. It’s that the current takes them farther away from shore. But with the life ring with the rope attached to it, someone can hold onto that, get ahold of them, and pull them back to safety.”
The new law is also potentially cost effective, said Pol.
"The amount of money that goes into a search and rescue where you have to, you know, you gotta get boats in the water and birds in the sky, you gotta get helicopters out there, and you are searching for days and days and days,” he said. “You know, they're looking at a cost of up to about $500,000 between all of the different coordination that takes place between the loss and revenue to the community as they shut down beaches.”
The bill did initially raise some concerns for its authors.
“If we provide these life rings, does that mean people are going to feel like they can swim out there at all times of the day or at all times of the night? Is this going to add on this, you know, this amount of encouragement when it’s not safe to swim? Or is this going to leave us with a legal liability if, for example, you know, the devices get stolen or they’re damaged?” said Pol.
But overall, Pol found the life-saving potential overpowered any downsides. The bill was denied in its first session, but it went through in 2024.
Pol was at a Cubs game with his friends a couple weeks ago when he received messages that the bill was already working.
“While we were there, I started getting texts from the public safety officials saying, ‘Hey, just to let you know, the bill that you got passed? It’s already saving lives,’” he said.
“I about burst into tears.”
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