Teen survives SUV's harrowing plunge into frigid lake

John Wisely

Detroit Free Press

Nolan Mullins, 16, of Harrison Township, Mich., was able to escape his parents' Ford Flex and climb on its roof in Lake St. Clair after a steering problem Feb. 25, 2017, in Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich., The U.S. Coast Guard rescued him.

GROSSE POINTE SHORES, Mich. — Nolan Mullins was just trying to change lanes when the steering wheel of his mother's Ford Flex locked up and aimed him right into the chilly waters of Lake St. Clair.

Nolan, who got his driver's license in May, said he was driving north in the left lane of Lake Shore Road near Clairview Road at bout 2 p.m. ET Saturday. He was doing about 30 mph when a car ahead of him slowed down to turn.

Nolan nudged his right hand down on the steering wheel and glided into the right lane. As he went to straighten the steering wheel, it froze and the car kept going.

"It felt like the tire locked," the 16-year-old said. "I tried shaking the wheel, and I couldn't get it to move. It wouldn't move."

The Flex jumped the curb and cruised through a short, grassy shoulder.

"I had this freak-out moment," he said. "By the time I slammed on the brakes, I wasn't getting any traction."

Then it splashed into the 33-degree waters of the lake. The SUV began to sink, and Nolan scrambled to get out.

He tried the door, but the weight of the water on the outside made it immovable. He hit the power window button and the window paused for a second, then went all the way down.

"If I'd waited another 5 seconds, I think I would have lost the power windows," Nolan said.

His mind was racing to deal with being trapped and he remembers thinking that he could pull the headrest off the seat and use the metal bars inside it to break the window if necessary. With the window open, he didn't need to, so Nolan unhitched his seat belt, and started to climb out as the water began to pour over the top of the door. He climbed onto the roof to shiver in the cold.

At that point, the lake is only about 6 feet deep, but the shoreline was getting farther and farther away.

"The car was still sinking and moving and floating around," Nolan said. "Every time the wind would blow, I would start to move again."

Nolan stood on the roof looking for help. On the shore, a motorist, Lisa Hughes, was driving by and saw the commotion.

"I saw a bunch of cars lined up on the lake, and it struck me as odd," she said. "Then I saw this kid standing on the roof of his car."

Hughes, an elementary school principal, told her 17-year-old daughter, Alex, to call 911. She estimates Nolan was 30 to 40 yards off shore when she hollered out to him.

"He was scared, and my heart just went out to him as a mom and a human being," she said.

She tried to calm him and asked if she could call his mom. Nolan shouted his mother's phone number to her.

At Nolan's home in Harrison Township, Mich., his mother and father were getting dressed to attend a wedding. They had sent Nolan to drop off his younger brother for a hockey game, and his mother checked the GPS feature on her son's phone to see how close he was to returning.

"The GPS showed him in the lake," said Lisa Mullins, who figured the GPS was malfunctioning. Then her phone rang, and Lisa Hughes was on the line.

"She said, 'Your son, Nolan, is fine, but he drove into the lake,'" Mullins said. "Things began to click very quickly then."

Mullins immediately called a family friend who lives nearby and asked him to drive over to wait with Nolan.

Grosse Pointe Shores police and fire crews responded to the shore and called the U.S. Coast Guard for help with the rescue.

The Coast Guard dispatched a crew from its St. Clair Shores Station, and they hurried south to the search for Nolan.

"They drove the government vehicle down from the station and launched their rapid-deployment craft," said Petty Officer Nathan Distelrath of the Coast Guard Sector Detroit. "He stepped off his vehicle onto the craft. Grosse Pointe Shores police and fire were shoreside."

Nolan's sweatpants and hoodie were soaked, and he was freezing. Medical crews pulled off his wet clothes and wrapped him in blankets to raise his body temperature.

"They said I had mild hypothermia," Nolan said.

He was taken to St. John Hospital where doctors monitored him for several hours until his body temperature returned to normal. He was released Saturday evening.

A tow crew later pulled Mullins' vehicle from the lake. At this point, it's unclear what happened to the Mullins' vehicle, but in June 2015, Ford issued a recall on almost 400,000 vehicles, including the 2011 model year Ford Flex, because of power steering issues.

"If the vehicle experiences a loss of power steering assist, extra steering effort will be required at lower speeds, increasing the risk of a vehicle crash," according to the recall notice.

Mullins said she wasn't aware of the recall. Her car appears totaled because of all the water damage. Saturday was her birthday, and she considers herself lucky.

"Getting your kid back is about the best birthday present you could get," she said.

Follow John Wisely on Twitter: @Jwisely

U.S. Coast Guard crew rescue Nolan Mullins, 16, of Harrison Township, Mich., on Feb. 25, 2017, after his parents' Ford Flex had a steering problem, and he ended up in Lake St. Clair at Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.

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