A 10-year-old Madison, Wis., girl was in critical condition this morning after being rescued from Lake Michigan on Sunday off Kemil Beach at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (INDU).

Indiana Conservation Officer Shawn Brown identified the girl as Brianna Cauley and said that she had been transported to Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The incident occurred around 2:38 p.m., when Brianna was reported missing after playing in the water off Kemil Beach. Brown said that witnesses put her between 30 and 70 feet off shore when she disappeared.

Conservation Officers responded to the scene as did dive teams from the Porter, Burns Harbor, and Portage fire departments. Beverly Shores firefighters also responded with their inflatable boat and at 3:03 p.m. one of them spotted Brianna floating in three feet of water approximately 20 feet from shore.

Porter Fire Chief Lewis Craig told the Chesterton Tribune that two BSVFD firefighters and a PFD firefighter accompanied EMS personnel as they transported Brianna to St. Anthony Memorial Health Center in Michigan City. “They had a pulse when they got her to the hospital,” he said.

There were no rip currents reported on Sunday, Brown said, but there was a slight chop to the water. Both Brown and Craig, however, believe that Brianna may have been standing on a sand bar at the time and stepped into a drop-off.

“The terrain of the lake goes from shallow to deep very suddenly with the sand bars,” Brown noted.

Brown urged all parents to outfit their children with life jackets before allowing them to play in Lake Michigan. “That way if a child loses their footing, they’re going to stay afloat,” he said.

Kemil Beach is one of the six unguarded beaches at INDU, but the 2008 swimming season officially ended on Labor Day and no beach in Porter County, including the beach at Indiana Dunes State Park, is patrolled by lifeguards in the fall.

Posted 9/22/2008