Video captures rescue of river tubing group stranded for 3 days, living
off bark and flowers
[August 12, 2026]
By HALLIE GOLDEN
Pushing through dense, shoulder-high brush near a river in west
Michigan, a trooper yells out: “Make some noise!”
A boy’s scream can be heard in the distance on body camera footage
showing how rescue teams last week found two women and a 9-year-old boy
who had been stranded for three days after their river tubing trip went
wrong.
“We’re coming, guys,” says Cameron Wright, a conservation officer from
Newaygo County, his breath heard in ragged gasps.
The team picks up their pace, pushing through sharp switchgrass and
stinging nettle, the footage released by the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources shows. A few moments later, they find Sarah Vida, 28,
and her son Kayden Kovalcik, 9, along with Jazmin Hock, 28; wearing just
their swimming suits.
Hock's legs are almost entirely covered in deep, red cuts from scrapes
after trudging through the brush. They have a broken phone and a single
water bottle with only a few sips left.
“You’re talking about vegetation that’s higher than your eyes and
switchgrass that cuts you when you touch it and stinging nettles that
makes your skin set on fire,” Anna Cullen, a conservation officer from
Muskegon County who helped with the rescue, said Tuesday.
The trio had been on a tubing trip on the Muskegon River in the small
community of Twin Lake on Tuesday when they'd hit logs and their tubes
popped, according to officials. They were reported missing after one of
the women hadn't shown up to her dentist appointment.
“I was just in disbelief at finding them because we were just running
out of ideas and places to search and it was nothing short of a miracle
that we ended up finding them the way we did,” Wright said.
For days, teams had scoured the river and rugged terrain.
The group was found Friday about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) from where
they entered the river, according to Wright. The rescuers had tracked
them from a tube next to the river, following footprints, broken twigs
and bent grass.
In the video, Kayden explains that they’ve been eating bark and flowers,
while Hock says they had to drink river water.
They'd been tubing down the river and kept hitting log jams, Hock
explains.
“The last one that we ran into just popped everything,” she says.
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This image made from video provided by the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources shows conservation officer Anna Cullen celebrating
on Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, in Twin Lake, Mich., as a search and rescue
team found two women and a child who had been missing after taking a
river tubing trip.
They started walking and soon realized they were going in circles, she
says.
Members of the rescue crew handed over their own shirts to protect them
from the bugs swarming their cuts and put medical gloves on some of
their hands and feet. Wright inflated his life vest for Hock to sit on.
As she answered the rescue team's questions, her legs, lined with
scratches, shook.
“There was not even an inch of their exposed skin that was not just
covered in cuts and bug bites and mud and scrapes where they were just
physically not able to go any further,” Wright said, explaining that he
still had cuts on his arms from the search.
Cullen said the women later explained that when they saw the rescuers,
they thought they were hallucinating.
The two women couldn't walk, so the rescuers put them in Stokes baskets,
a type of stretcher, to get them out of the brush, while Wright carried
the boy on his back. They were taken to the hospital and treated for
infections, dehydration and rashes, according to Lt. Pat Agema, a
spokesperson for the Michigan State Police. As of Tuesday, they were all
back home, he said.
Wright said the entire hike out, Kayden was telling him about everything
he was going to eat and drink.
"He's just telling me about all of the root beer he’s going to drink and
the slushies and the pizza and doughnuts he’s going to eat,” said
Wright.
He adds: "You would have no idea that he had just spent 72 hours in the
woods from how happy he was.”
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