South Haven Accepts Donation of Water Rescue Unit
Servatius family delivers lifesaving robot to council
SOUTH HAVEN — A couple donated a water rescue device to South Haven this week in the hopes of mitigating future drownings.
Ryan and Mandy Servatius, who are the owners of Big Blue Rentals, presented the EMILY – which stands for Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard robot – to the South Haven City Council on Monday. The Servatius’ decided to buy the EMILY after watching a demonstration of the robot last summer.
“We liked what we saw and then after that we just followed the progression,” Ryan said.
The unit works by sending a remotely-controlled large floatation device out into the lake to search for and rescue a swimmer in distress. The person will then be able to grab on to the device and cling to it until more rescuers arrive.
The devices cost more than $12,000 each.
According to the EMILY robot website, the lifesaving device can travel up to 23 miles per hour and is controlled by an easy-to-use remote. The EMILY can be made to have several different attachments including a GoPro, helmet and life jackets. The batteries can last up to three years before needing to be replaced.
The EMILY was invented in 2010 by Tony Mulligan, CEO of an Arizona-based maritime robotics company called Hydronalix.
Ryan said they kept their eyes on the city council members who ran on the stance of wanting lifeguards and waited to see what would happen.
“Typical politics, it gets in there and bogs down to a slow creep and … nothing was really moving forward,” Ryan said. “So, I said ‘let’s look into this.’ We looked at it, we said let’s put our money where our mouth is.”
Ryan said they wanted to give back to the community that they lived and worked in.
The Servatius’ bought the EMILY and then talked to the city on what would be the best way to go about donating it.
“The biggest fear we had was it was going to end up on a police car and then the police cars got it in the back and then it’s out on 73rd Street and someone needs it at the beach,” Ryan said.
The city first recommended they give it to the South Haven Area Emergency Services, but after talking with people from emergency services, Ryan and Mandy decided to go through the donation process with the city so it would end up on the beach.
“I begged them to have it done before Blueberry Festival, because that is the busiest time here in South Haven,” Mandy said. “I begged them (the company that makes the robots) and they put us at the top, they made it (and) they sent it to us.”
Mandy said getting the robot donation on the city council’s agenda kept getting postponed and they decided if it wasn’t accepted soon, they would donate it to another town.
“We just want it used,” Mandy said. “It didn’t matter if it was here, Saugatuck, St. Joe, whatever. But we still held out, hoping that it would be here, and they finally put it on the dock and it got passed.”
South Haven is not the only place in the area that has received a donated EMILY robot.
In May, an EMILY robot was donated to Berrien County by relatives of a person who drowned in Lake Michigan.
“The nice thing is, since we’ve ordered ours, Ludington ordered them, and Ludington has already had a successful rescue,” Ryan said.
The Servatius’ said there were some locals who were worried that the EMILY would ensure South Haven would never get lifeguards.
“Hopefully we get lifeguards, and then lifeguards can have it next to them, ready to go,” Ryan said. “But if we don’t have lifeguards, it’s still going to be on that beach.”
The Servatius’ said Kam Daugherty, in coordination with the South Haven Lifeguards in Full Effect group and South Haven Ambassadors Program & Education, have set up a GoFundMe page for donations to purchase a second EMILY for South Haven to be set up on north beach. The listed fundraising goal is $12,000, which has received $1,565 as of Thursday.
This article is sourced from: https://www.heraldpalladium.com/communities/south_haven/south-haven-accepts-donation-of-[%e2%80%a6]ue-unit/article_681685c4-a5fd-55aa-a1df-96d1bfb1fd2b.html