Grand Rapids, MI Boy, 3, trapped under overturned kayak rescued in Kent CountyPosted May 25, 2020 KENT COUNTY, MI — Austin Angell showed up at the Rogue River late Sunday afternoon hoping to get his brand new kayak in the water for the first time. And while he never managed to get his kayak wet, 30 minutes after arriving at the river, he and his friend Halie Peters found themselves a half mile downstream saving a life instead. Angell said he was out of his car only a moment when he heard screams coming from the parents of a 3-year-old boy, who he and Peters eventually saved. The family had been kayaking near the Childsdale Avenue Bridge in Plainfield Charter Township, according to a Facebook post from the Plainfield Professional Fire Fighter’s Union Local 3890. The family’s kayak overturned at around 5 p.m. May 24. Angell and Peters arrived on scene mere seconds after it happened. The kayak, with the 3-year-old child still inside, was already out of sight and downstream, Angell said. Immediately, Angell said, he ran to the riverbank and started shouting, asking what color the boy’s life jacket was and what color the kayak was, and then he and Peters took off running. “A lot of people were there and were looking upstream from where they tipped and that didn’t make any sense,” Angell said. “Halie and I were the only ones that went downstream.” Angell said, while the firefighter union’s Facebook post says the kayak was only an eighth of a mile downstream, they definitely found themselves closer to a half mile away from where they had planned to launch upon arrival. It wasn’t easy locating or getting to the kayak either, Angell said. As there is no trail along the bank of the river, Angell and Peters had to run along a trail uphill and out of sight from the river before cutting through the woods and down to the river, and then head back up and down again until they spotted the kayak, he said. Once they located the kayak, it still took a couple minutes of running through calf-deep mud before they could get to it. When they found it, Angell said, the kayak was “capsized and water was rushing over the top of it.” “I got real freaked out and Halie and I started praying immediately, hoping he wasn’t in there.”Angell said both of them immediately jumped into the water and the first thing he saw was the boy’s arm sticking out from the kayak, not moving. “I started screaming for help, and when Halie got in the water behind me and lifted the kayak up, I reached in there to pull the safety harness netting and right when I did that I felt that kid grab my arm. “That was the best feeling I will ever have in my entire life.” Angell estimates the water was about six feet deep where the kayak came to rest against a fallen tree. There was a small air bubble between the floor of the kayak and the water, which allowed the boy — who was wearing a life jacket — to stay afloat and continue breathing, he said. “If the river were wasn’t as high as it was, the tree never would have been in the water and the kayak would never have been stopped by the tree,” he said. The firefighter’s union commended Peters and Angell for their quick actions in its Facebook post. “If it wasn’t for their quick actions, the outcome would have been much worse,” the post said. The union is also discouraging anyone from boating on the river at this time, stating that “the water is moving very fast and conditions are unpredictable.” An attempt to get in touch with the boy’s family was not immediately successful.