U.S. man rescued trying to walk from Detroit on frozen lake to Canada

[March 07, 2015] (Reuters) - A 25-year-old American man was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after he tried to walk from Detroit to Canada across a frozen lake, officials said on Friday.

The man was found on Thursday on Lake St. Clair, which borders the United States and Canada, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from shore by a lookout assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter Neah Bay, a 140-foot ice-breaking tug, the Coast Guard said.

"He was suffering from hypothermia and disoriented," said Chief Petty Officer Lauren Jorgensen, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

The man, who was not named, appeared to be carrying only personal goods and told those who rescued him he was trying to walk to Toronto, about 200 miles (321 km) from Detroit and 175 miles (281 km) from the eastern edge of the lake.

He was taken to a hospital for care.

It was the first rescue of a person conducted by an ice-rescue team deployed from a Great Lakes cutter in more than four years, the Coast Guard said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas)

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