63-year-old fishing with wife dies after they’re thrown overboard, Michigan cops say

A man fishing with his wife Saturday in a Michigan lake drowned after they both were tossed from the boat, authorities say.

Deputies in Leelanau County were dispatched to Little Glen Lake around 12:20 p.m. Saturday for a report of an unoccupied boat that had crashed ashore. Soon after, a kayaking fisherman called 911 to report a boating accident, the sheriff’s office said.

That fisherman helped a 50-year-old woman to shore, but her 63-year-old husband was not immediately found, according to a sheriff’s news release.

Authorities continued to search for the man, identified as Kevin Donovan Herman, until 6 p.m. when his body was pulled out of the water, the sheriff said.

Investigators learned that Herman and his wife were fishing when they “somehow lost control of the boat.” They both were thrown overboard, and the boat kept traveling until it crashed ashore, the news release states.

Herman’s wife was wearing an unsecured flotation device, but he was not, the sheriff said. The wife was taken to a local hospital and was treated for “weather-related injuries.”

“Speed, alcohol or mechanical failure are not believed to have been factors in the crash,” the sheriff’s office said.

Leelanau County is about 140 miles north of Grand Rapids.