A near-tragedy, thwarted by a heroic rescue, took place after members of Student Video Productions took a 20-foot jump into the chilling waters of Lake Superior, earlier this month.

The students were trying to produce a promotional video by cliff diving. They planned to send it to actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is known for his roles in “500 Days of Summer” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” Ultimately, SVP events coordinator, Dan Donahue, ended up saving President of Student Life Lecture Board, Miranda Divozzo, from drowning in Lake Superior.  The near-disaster happened on Sunday, June 9.

SVP and SLLB have been campaigning to get Gordon-Levitt to speak at OU, and members of the groups took a trip to Mackinac Island to film their promotional video. The theme of the video was about taking risks, so along the way, the group was quickly sidetracked by the opportunity to visit Black Rocks Cliff Jumping in Marquette.

“We initially didn’t plan to do this jump. It was all spur of the moment,” said SVP President Robert Paulson.

The cliff-face, the students would be leaping from, was about a 20-foot drop. It’s a designated dive area and manned by a park police officer.

“When you jump in, you have to swim all the way to the shore, which was actually pretty far away,” Divozzo said.

 

The leap

The sun may have been bright and shining that day, but the water of Lake Superior was only 38 degrees.

“It was kind of one of those, being young and stupid, rushing to a decision kind of things,” Paulson said.

Paulson and fellow SVP member, Erik Courter jumped first, followed by Donahue. Right before Divozzo jumped, she had second thoughts.

“I asked the guard beforehand if he’d save me if I started to drown, he said he didn’t really want to, but he would,” she said.

Immediately after Divozzo made the jump, the group could tell that something was wrong.

“When Miranda came up, she started to panic and yell for help,” Donahue said.

“The cold just threw a shock to my body,” Divozzo said. “Water came into my mouth and nose. I thought I was drowning.”

Divozzo attempted to swim to shore, but kept getting pushed back by the frigid tides.

“As soon as she surfaced, she swam up the rock-face and tried to climb. She wouldn’t get back in the water,” Paulson said.

Donahue, who had been in the water for the shoot at the time, went into rescue mode.

“My first reaction was that ‘Crap, this was bad,’ but I started to swim towards her,” he said.

In the meantime, the park police officer threw Divozzo a flotation device.

After helping Divozzo onto the flotation device, Donahue’s asthma began to affect him, and he had to fight a grueling battle of his own.

“The asthma hit me pretty hard while I was trying to swim and pull Miranda in at the same time. It was a struggle, but all I could think about was ‘I got to get to shore.’ I wanted to get out of the water asap, but I didn’t even think about it when the incident happened.”

Onlookers admired Donahue for his heroic deeds.

“A few people said good job, and they were glad I was down there,” Donahue said. “ It didn’t really sink in at first.”

“He was very calm and collected about it, he handled the situation very well,” Paulson said.

 

Safely ashore

About four police cars and two fire trucks were waiting for Divozzo when she got back to shore. Conveniently, one of the first people on the scene was a nurse and helped rush Divozzo to a nearby EMT vehicle.

“They threw a sleeping bag around me and had me wrapped up like a mummy. I even saw a little kid run by that said ‘Mom, I just saw a dead body!’” said Divozzo.

Divozzo was tested for hypothermia and, other than the fact it still hurts when she breathes, is doing just fine.

Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time she had been injured trying to get Joseph Gordon-Levitt to come to OU.

“I actually got tick bites all over my legs two weeks ago, shooting this same video. I even had to get tested for Lyme disease,” she said.

The group has the entire cliff diving debacle on video, but the question on their minds is ‘What will JGL think about it?’

“Not only did I jump off of a cliff for him, but I almost drowned doing it,” said Divozzo.  “Hopefully he can see my dedication.”