Michigan DNR Releases 4-Minute Video of 3 Muskegon River Tubers' Rescue

Q: How did searchers use a single abandoned inner tube and muddy footprints to track down the missing family in the dense Michigan woods?

Searchers found the family by turning a small set of physical clues into a trail through the woods. The break came when officers found a single abandoned inner tube tangled on a log jam near the riverbank. That told them the missing tubers had likely come ashore there rather than continuing downstream. In the same area, they spotted a disturbed path in the grass and weeds, suggesting someone had climbed over the logs, crossed shallow water and moved inland. Once at the bank, rescuers found muddy footprints — including what one trooper said appeared to be a child’s print just inside the woods. That gave them a direction of travel. From there, DNR officers and state police tracked the route the way experienced ground searchers do: following trampled grass, bent ferns, snapped sticks and other signs of recent movement through dense brush. As they pushed deeper into the remote area, searchers began calling out. After several attempts, they heard what sounded like a child answering in the distance. They kept moving toward the sound and, about 35 minutes later, saw hands waving through the thick vegetation. Those clues — the inner tube on the log jam, the muddy footprints and the disturbed vegetation — narrowed a vast search area to one precise path and led rescuers to the three relatives alive in the woods.

Q: With dead phones and failing rafts, what extreme sacrifices did these women make to keep a 9-year-old boy alive for three harrowing days?

They kept the 9-year-old alive by giving him the little food and water they had and denying themselves, then surviving on whatever they could forage in the wilderness. According to family members, Jazman Hock and Sarah Vida had packed only some water and protein bars after setting out on the Muskegon River in inflatable rafts that later broke apart. Once they were stranded and their phone battery died, the two women reportedly gave the available food and water to Kayden Kovalcik rather than keep it for themselves. To stay alive over the next three days, the women resorted to eating flowers, bark and ants. Family accounts indicate the adults ate flowers floating on the water, while the boy rejected some of that and at times ate bark and ants himself. Other reports said they may also have drunk swamp or river water as they tried to endure dehydration and exposure. They also stayed together in the woods, tried to move toward traffic noises in hopes of finding a road, and kept calling out until searchers heard them. When rescuers reached them, officials said they were exhausted, dehydrated, badly cut up and covered in bug bites, with the women needing hospital care afterward. The central sacrifice was clear: the adults protected the child by surrendering their limited supplies to him and surviving on almost nothing themselves until rescue teams found them.

Q: After surviving on bark and ants, what critical gear mistake caused this family's river tubing trip to become a three-day wilderness nightmare?

They used the wrong equipment: inflatable rafts or pool floats not designed for river tubing. Family members said the group launched on the Muskegon River in inflatables meant for pool use or otherwise not built to handle river conditions. Those rafts broke apart on the river, leaving Jazman Hock, Sarah Vida and 9-year-old Kayden Kovalcik stranded in remote woods near the riverbank. That gear failure set off the three-day ordeal. With only limited food and water, and a phone that later died, the adults reportedly gave supplies to the child and survived by foraging, including eating flowers, bark and ants, until search teams found them. In short, the critical mistake was attempting a river tubing trip with pool-style inflatables instead of proper river-rated tubes or rafts.

3 articles · Updated · Detroit News · Aug 12

A 4-minute bodycam video released Monday shows Michigan conservation officers locating and comforting three missing Muskegon River tubers late Friday after days of searching.
The footage captures rescuers pushing through dense vegetation near the Mill Iron Road Boat Launch, about 10 miles from the group's launch point, before hearing the tubers call back and finding them.
DNR officer Cameron Wright said searchers focused on the river's most remote stretch, then followed a path through a log jam and footprints in mud into the woods.
The three Muskegon residents—Jazman Hock, Sarah Vida, and 9-year-old Kayden Kovalcik—had been missing since Tuesday after getting lost on the river, where one told officers they had been on the water for four hours.