Three boys played in the water near an island’s sandbar on the St. Joseph River, oblivious to how powerful the current was just beyond them as it curled around a sharp bend. The water’s surface looked placid.
Two adults watched from the pontoon boat that they’d ridden, which was anchored for the warm June evening in 2020 by a long, narrow island in Sodus Township, Mich., halfway between Berrien Springs and St. Joseph.
Then two jet skis ripped by. The reverberating waves knocked 8-year-old Levi Evett off of his feet, which had been in ankle-deep water, and the current sucked him into depths of more than 10 or 18 feet. Out of sight.
The scene gripped his aunt, who’d often taken the boat to this island and had also brought her own son and his buddy on the trip. She screamed for help from the boat.
Her lean, athletic boyfriend, 45-year-old Matthew Kihlstrand of Baroda, jumped into the water to rescue Levi.
Two strangers, Austin Stahly and Cameron Meade, both of South Bend, had been fileting fish on the riverbank near their boat perhaps 140 yards downstream with their backs toward the action. But when the sound of the boys splashing gave way to adult screams, they flipped around. Then jumped into the river.
Levi would later say that he could feel Kihlstrand push him up “out of the depths.” When Levi surfaced, he climbed onto Stahly’s back, grabbing his wrist so hard that it would leave a bruise.
“He was trying to breathe,” Stahly says.
Levi’s aunt tossed life jackets into the water. Meade grabbed one and stuffed it under Stahly. They were still 15 or more yards from shore. Stahly’s muscles began to spasm.
“As soon as my adrenaline rush was over, I was gulping water,” Stahly says. “Cameron saved my life.”
As Stahly drew close to shore, he exhaled river water — an “exorcist-like” spew of six feet, he recalls — because he couldn’t breathe.
Meade, an Army veteran who’d grown up near the sea in Australia, also dove under water but couldn’t find Kihlstrand. The search and rescue teams and their drones, who showed up later, couldn’t locate him either. Kihlstrand’s body emerged about 1.5 miles downstream the next morning.
Levi would live.
Life jackets
Levi’s mom, Brittani Evett, of Coloma, didn’t hear about her son’s ordeal until she got a call near midnight, after a long night of searching and investigating by public safety officials.
Once the initial trauma settled, she made a special shopping trip: for new life jackets. She’d had them before. She always made sure her kids wore them on boats, but, in her mind, it hadn’t been so much of a concern for adults. That changed.
“I grew up on Lake Michigan; I’ve always been on boats and kayaks and paddleboards,” she says. “As adults, we think we know everything, and we don’t.”
“Any time I can share with anybody or promote on social media about life vests, I do,” she adds. “Everything that happened that day could have been prevented.”
Levi loves his new life jacket with the shark fin on the back.
Evett and her husband still take Levi and their two other sons, now 7 and 6, to beaches. Levi is still swimming — and working to get over his fear of not touching the bottom of a pool or lake.
But the drowning of two teen-aged South Bend brothers in Lake Michigan at Warren Dunes State Park on May 15 is among the stories that, Evett says, “give me flashbacks and anxiety.”
Justin Frommer: The day track stood still: How SB Saint Joseph honored its fallen teammate Saleem Qasem
On Mother’s Day, too, Niles firefighters rescued a family of kayakers from the Dowagiac River after a few of them tipped over. Two of the kids reportedly went underwater and hit their heads. Some hung onto logs when firefighters arrived. Luckily, all wore life jackets.
Evett sees Stahly and Meade once or twice a year and gratefully gives them Levi’s latest school pictures and other reminders of his ongoing life.
For Kihlstrand, Evett and friends erected a thin wooden cross on the riverbank where he’d tried to save Levi. On the island, they left stones painted with such messages as “wear a life vest” and “be careful.”
Carnegie Medals
The nonprofit Carnegie Hero Fund Commission found the rescue attempts so compelling that, in December, it awarded its Carnegie Medals to Stahly, Meade and Kihlstrand.
Started in 1904 by the steel-making industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the annual medals have been awarded to more than 10,000 people across the U.S. and Canada who risked their lives to save others, out of some 100,000 nominees. The recipients and their survivors are eligible for the fund’s financial help, including scholarships and grants (carnegiehero.org).
For Kihlstrand’s mother, Joan O’Sullivan, the medal was a surprise and a tearful honor for her humble son, a man who loved kids and often would pay for the order of the customer behind him in line at a fast-food drive-thru.
“If he hadn’t gone in the water, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself,” she says from her home in Nashville, Tenn. “He was that type of person.”
The Carnegie Medal caught the attention of a nonprofit that promotes following up on promises, Because I Said So, which is sending Stahly and Meade on an all-expenses-paid trip to Puerto Rico this week to join service projects and give talks at a retreat.
Stahly says there was no time to think when he dove. Since then, he’s had time to reflect as a father, now 32, with a 4-year-old daughter and an 18-month-old son who was in his wife’s womb at the time of the rescue. His son would later go for brain surgery.
The rescue disrupted his assumption that “I can swim and nothing can phase me.” Visits to the beach are no longer so relaxing.
“It definitely makes my heart skip any time I see someone struggling in the water, whether they’re just splashing around for fun,” he says. With the Carnegie award, he reflects, “I like to think of myself as someone who watches over other people, especially children.”
Water safety
Find links to these resources in this column online.
• River first aid: free, prerecorded webinar on creating a first-aid kit for your boat.
• Check list: surprising provisions needed for a safe, comfortable paddle, from my column on May 11, 2021.
May 2021: Got a whistle? Here’s a surprising checklist before you paddle in Michiana.
• Paddle safety: paddle sports safety course at boaterexam.com/paddling that’s recognized by the U.S. Coast Guard.
• Boating class: free online boating class led by a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteer twice a month. Send email to uscgaux3725@gmail.com.
• Inspection: free inspection of any boat for safety by local Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteers, with certificate and decal if you pass. No penalties. Call Joanne Moore at 574-360-8793.
• Boating laws: regulation handbooks for Indiana and Michigan.
Also in this column: Canoe, kayak rentals open at Ferrettie-Baugo. Plus pancakes, hike & glacier tour.
Follow Outdoor Adventures columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures. Contact him at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph River rescue wins Carnegie Medals for heroes life jackets