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 released by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources showing how rescue teams last week found two women and a 9-year-old boy who had been stranded for three days when 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. 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 walking for days 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 didn't show 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 knocked over grass.
In the video, Kayden explains that they’ve been eating bark and flowers, while Hock says they had to drink river water.
Hock explains that they’d been tubing down the river and kept hitting log jams.
“The last one that we ran into just popped everything,” she said.
They started walking and soon realized they were going in circles, she said.
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.
Cullen said the women later explained that when they saw the rescuers, they thought they were hallucinating.
The two women couldn't walk, so they put them in Stokes baskets, a type of stretcher, to get them out of the brush, while Wright carried the boy on his back. Along with their scrapes and cuts, they were also dealing with dehydration and exhaustion, and were taken to the hospital, according to Lt. Pat Agema, a spokesperson for the Michigan State Police.
“The entire hike out, 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.”
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. (
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Sen. Darline Graham has advanced to a runoff in South Carolina’s special Republican primary to replace her late brother Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Senate one month after his sudden death.
A first-time candidate who was always close to her brother’s political orbit, Darline Graham overcame skepticism about her lack of experience in her campaign to replace him, as she moved forward from a 10-way field in Tuesday’s balloting. Lindsey Graham died July 11, triggering a whirlwind special election season.
Gov. Henry McMaster had appointed Darline Graham to serve the waning months of her late brother’s term. She picked up President Donald Trump’s swift backing, but the rare open Senate seat attracted a broad field, including some of the state’s top Republicans, setting up the latest test of the president’s command over the GOP base.
For decades, South Carolina voters reliably returned Lindsey Graham to Washington despite periodic primary challengers who accused the dealmaker and foreign policy hawk of being insufficiently conservative.
Tuesday's contest featured one of Lindsey Graham’s earlier foes, as well as two U.S. House members and Mark Sanford, the former governor and congressman eager for a political comeback in a field crowded with familiar faces. One other Republican will advance to the Aug. 25 runoff, and the winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews in the general election.
Graham didn’t hold an election results watch party, instead huddling at a campaign office with family and staff while reporters waited in a nearby studio set up for her remarks. Instead of the ripple of excitement that typically moves through a watch party as news of candidates’ progress is announced, the only action in the Graham media room was from reporters setting up live shots to report her advancement to the Aug. 25 runoff
The unexpected primary began even before funeral observances in Washington and South Carolina for Graham, who died at his Washington home after suffering a tear in his aorta, concluded. State law proscribed a compressed timeline that forced candidates to navigate the decorum of mourning the senator's death while jockeying to replace him.
A day after Graham’s death was announced, his sister accepted Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s appointment to succeed her brother in an interim capacity and was sworn in with her family and the late senator’s staff standing behind her. A week later, Darline Graham launched into the campaign herself, encouraged to run and then endorsed by Trump.
Some voters said her brother's reputation helped tilt them to support Darline Graham.
“She’s not a politician, but she was kin to probably one of the greatest senators ever,” Frank Bohn of Horry County said.
While Darline Graham couldn't directly access the millions in Lindsey Graham's campaign account, there was no limit to how much could be transferred to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which funded advertising to support her.
A super PAC that once supported Lindsey Graham also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars backing Darline Graham. Mailers touted her as “President Trump's choice” and “Prepared to Carry on Lindsey's Legacy.”
More familiar to South Carolina voters in their own right were two U.S. House members in the race.
Fresh off an unsuccessful primary run for governor, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman entered the Senate contest and snapped up endorsements from the likes of Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah.
One of the most conservative House members, Norman is well-known across South Carolina as a fiscal conservative. At times, however, he has been at odds with Trump, backing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 presidential primary.
Another candidate, Rep. Russell Fry, had appeared poised to gain Trump's backing after Lindsey Graham's death. Despite lacking the president's endorsement, he announced his own candidacy and has been trying to boost his name recognition beyond his pro-Trump, Myrtle Beach-area district.
Voter George Mitford said Fry's service stood out to him over Darline Graham, who hasn't been in elected office.
“I just thought he’d probably had more experience in this than she would have had,” Mitford said, adding that he had supported Lindsey Graham’s Senate tenure.
The former South Carolina congressman and governor whose political ascendency was stalled by a 2009 extramarital affair made yet another attempt to return to public office.
Sanford’s Senate bid came just three months after he ended an effort to retake his former U.S. House seat, saying then he was quitting the race to establish a nonprofit to address the national debt, his signature issue. He spent days crisscrossing South Carolina, reintroducing himself to voters after more than a decade out of statewide office.
Mark Lynch, a Greenville businessman who tried to oust Graham in last month's regular Republican primary, swiftly relaunched his campaign after Graham’s death. Lynch campaigned as a Trump supporter, but in June, Trump on social media called him a “lunatic” and a “disaster for the Republican Party.”
Andrews, a Charleston physician, won her party’s June primary outright. Having set up her campaign based around challenging Graham, Andrews had been forced to pivot to a broader critique of the Republican contenders.
No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat here in decades. And when Graham last ran in 2020, he defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin.
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
Collins reported from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Former Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., watches as he waits to speak at a candidate event days before the special South Carolina Republican primary to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
FILE - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduces Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on the nomination Lunday for Commandant of the Coast Guard, Nov. 19, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., left, sits with his son James at a candidate event for hopefuls vying in a special Republican primary to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on November ballots, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026, in Florence, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
Rep. Ralph Norman R-S.C., speaks at a candidate event for hopefuls vying in a special Republican primary to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on November ballots, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026, in Florence, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
Larry Nordone looks on as his wife, U.S. Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., speaks to reporters after she voted in a special Republican primary to replace her brother, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on November ballots on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Florence, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
