Growing up in Petoskey, Ryan Boldrey lived through the tragedies of two school mates drowning in separate incidents off the pier in that Lake Michigan community.
That was well before Boldrey was a reporter at the Kalamazoo Gazette. But those experiences reinforced both the quiet dangers of the Great Lakes and informed the way he was able to tell one of the most heartbreaking, best-read stories of the summer on MLive.
In early August, Boldrey was called in to report on a young couple – Kory Ernster, 22, and Emily MacDonald, 19 – who died while swimming at South Haven. They were among the 38 people who have drowned in Lake Michigan this summer, according to the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project.
“It’s definitely a very tragic story – the couple have been together since she was a freshman in high school and he was a senior in high school, and they had overcome all sorts of obstacles to stay together throughout the years,” Boldrey said.
Ernster’s family was vacationing in South Haven, and it was the last day before he left for Wisconsin to take a job as an engineer. MacDonald was getting ready to return to her studies at Michigan State University. Nothing is known about how they drowned; what is known is that it occurred 10-15 minutes after they had made social media posts from the beach, and that the area was under a yellow-flag caution for swimming.
“When a sibling arrived at the beach, they found their stuff but didn't find them. They saw first responders down the beach,” Boldrey said. “Emily had spent a lot of time in the Great Lakes swimming, knew about undercurrents, all those things. But they figured, ‘Hey, we're strong swimmers’ and there was no red flag out.”
That insight comes from one part of the assignment Boldrey had in telling this story: Contacting and interviewing a family that is dealing with shock and grief. Journalists do this often, and I can tell you from experience it is both hard to do, and vital.
It’s our job to inform readers and to do it in a professional and sensitive way. Interviewing loved ones helps us present a full picture of the life of those who died. It’s often the last story written about the person, and we want to focus on their life, not their death.
Boldrey picked up on social media posts being made by family and friends of Ernster and MacDonald and sent messages to them.
“It's definitely not an easy part of the job,” he said. “(MacDonald’s) mother called me within seconds of my message hitting her inbox. It kind of blew my mind, but it also gave me a lot of comfort. Because it let me know that that her mom understood, ‘Hey, this is a chance for Emily's story to be shared and for it to be done right.”
Part of the reason Boldrey could empathize with the families was because of the losses to drowning that he had experienced in his youth.
“I've unfortunately been at the scene of a drowning where I've had to identify a person. That's horrible,” he said. “One of the worst days of my life looking back, but you can take those instances from your own life, share those with the family and let them know you're going to handle it with care.”
The second imperative behind the reporting that Boldrey and our other reporters have done this summer covering drownings is to continue to educate our readers on the dangers of something so familiar and seemingly benign to native Michiganders – our waterways.
We see the Great Lakes for their beauty and the opportunities they provide for sport and recreation. But they also bring rip currents, undertows and wave action against piers that create a “washing machine” phenomenon that is very dangerous to swimmers. There are no lifeguards on popular Michigan beaches, and few life vest stations.
“(The lake) can change in an instant. If the beach looks empty and there's a flag up there, there's a reason for that,” Boldrey said. “So, take a walk down the beach – better safe than sorry.”
🎧 In this episode, John Hiner and Eric Hultgren talk with Ryan Boldrey about the record-breaking drownings that have happened this year on Lake Michigan Listen here on Spotify or here on Apple.
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John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at [email protected].
