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Coast Guard suspends Lake Michigan search for missing 16-year-old

PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) – Though the U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its involvement, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office is still searching for a Holland Christian High School student who went missing after his boat capsized Sunday night in Lake Michigan.

Calling it a “very difficult decision” to halt the search, the Coast Guard said in a Monday afternoon release that it had spent more than 17 hours and spanned 119 square miles trying to find 16-year-old Riley Hoeksema, using boats from its stations in Grand Haven and Holland and helicopters from its Detroit and Traverse City stations.

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office said it will keep searching for Riley as long as possible.

The search was temporarily suspended for a time midday Monday due to poor weather conditions, but the sheriff’s office Dive Team was prepared to head back out as wave heights were decreasing around 4:40 p.m.

Riley went missing in the water around 8:40 p.m. Sunday, according to sheriff’s officials. He and another 16-year-old, who hasn’t been named, were in a Zodiac-style inflatable hull boat and took a quick turn, causing the boat to capsize.

The unnamed teen who is also a Holland Christian High School student, was rescued by a good Samaritan in a passing boat about five or ten minutes after the boat capsized, but Riley has not been seen since. The rescue effort has since turned into a search and recovery effort.

Authorities found life jackets in the boat but neither of the teens, who are both from the Holland area, were wearing them. It’s unknown how fast the boat was going when the teens were ejected from it. It was recovered nearby in about 20 feet of water near the Spyglass Condominiums.

In addition to the Coast Guard, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team and a number of other agencies responded Sunday night. Authorities said conditions were good for the search at that time – there was not much wind and waves were not too high. Crews using sonar and also attempted to ping one of the teen’s cellphones to help direct the search.

However, the wind started to pick up Monday morning, which caused authorities to call of the search for several hours until conditions improved.

Monday morning, the teen who had been rescued from the capsized boat was in good condition and was home from the hospital, authorities said.