Real People/Smoke on the Water
Seven Teens, an Explosion and a Heroic Rescue
When Tonia Logan and Cindy Owen saw two boaters in danger, they headed toward the peril
Cindy Owen, left, and Tonia Logan, right, with most of the crew
TONIA LOGAN: Tubing is a summer tradition here on Lake Michigan. In July of last year, my cousin Cindy and I took her daughter and six other kids out tubing on my pontoon boat. We had just explored the beach with a happy bunch of 13-year-olds.
Cindy Owen: Then Tonia heard a little boom, and I noticed smoke way out on the water.
Tonia: Nobody else was around. We hadn’t seen another boat all day. I told the kids to get back into the boat, and we quickly headed out there as I called 911.
Cindy: It was like a scary movie. The smoke was getting thicker, and as we got closer, we saw a burning Chris-Craft boat—and two men in the water. Tonia was driving, and she went into girlboss mode, getting us as close to the men as possible.
Tonia: The guys were floating on a piece of board. We could tell they were injured, definitely with serious burns, and in a ton of pain.
Cindy: One guy was moaning. The other had a faraway look in his eyes.
Tonia: I knew that they would need the ladder to climb into our boat, but we had four inner tubes tied up back there. Cindy’s daughter, Ella, got rope ready to throw to the men, and her friends Nora and Evelyn moved the tubes out of the way of the ladder.
The wreck
Cindy: The kids were quick and efficient without needing our help. I was so proud of them.
Tonia: We couldn’t physically assist the men because of their burns. It would have hurt them for us to touch them. We made space and offered them towels and water. They were definitely in shock. One of them asked me to take him back to the parking lot, and he kept looking for his phone and keys.
Cindy: They told us something had gone wrong with their engine. We later learned that they’d been drifting with the engine off, and when they went to turn on the ignition, they immediately saw flames. They must have been thrown off the boat by the blast, because one of them told me they had to swim back to grab their life preservers.
Tonia: Police and paramedics met us on shore and rushed the men to the hospital. It surprised me that people started calling us heroes. We did what I hope anyone else would have done, which is help someone in need.
Cindy: The older I get, the more I understand that life depends on our generosity to others. If our actions demonstrated that to the kids that day, then I’d say there was a higher purpose for us being there.
Tonia: The kids won’t forget this experience. None of us will. Younger me didn’t always know this, but I do now: Even when something’s hard, scary or uncomfortable, doing the right thing can have a profound impact on you and the people around you. —As told to David Hochman
Tonia Logan, 49, who works for Home Depot, and Cindy Owen, 56, a kindergarten teacher, live in Sugar Grove, Illinois. The two people they rescued, a man in his 40s from Washington state and a man in his 50s from Illinois, were treated at a hospital and released. The cause of the boat’s explosion was likely improper ventilation of the engine compartment.