Posted on April 21, 2025
LELAND, MI — It was a date they’ll never forget.
Mitchell O’Brien and Breanne Sika were hunting for Leland blue stones and planning to catch the sunset over Lake Michigan when the beach tried to eat O’Brien for dinner.
One moment, O’Brien was walking normally on hard wet sand at the waterline. The next, he was sunk up to his waistline.
“Man, I was stuck, stuck — like, my left leg, I couldn’t move it. It’s like there was something holding it underground. It was crazy how hard it was there,” O’Brien said.
Sika and O’Brien — co-workers at the 217 Recovery Center clinic in Traverse City who were kinda-maybe dating before they were forced to call 911 together — definitely found more than they bargained for at Reynolds Street Beach on Saturday, April 12.
Their predicament drew news attention and social media gawkers this week after photos circulated online showing O’Brien stuck waist-deep in the shoreline.
The two were hunting for a special blue slag that washes up on the Leland shoreline when they encountered a large pipe snaking across the beach, spewing slurry from a hydraulic dredge that was vacuuming sand from the harbor bottom.
The machine is owned by Leland Township, which dredges its harbor periodically under a state permit and is removing about 60,000 cubic yards of sand this spring that’s being used to build-up the Van’s and Reynolds Street public beaches.
They were crossing the outwash when O’Brien got stuck.
“If it was obviously unstable, we would not have walked out on it,” he said. “But it didn’t look that bad. It just looked like wet sand by the time we were there. Most of it was firm enough to walk on.”
Then, “all of a sudden, I was in a quicksand hole.”
O’Brien struggled to free himself for about 15 minutes before the two decided to call for help. The 911 call was hampered by poor reception and O’Brien said the dispatcher hung up on him at one point, mistaking him for a telemarketer.
Mitchell O’Brien of Interlochen was rescued from quicksand near dredging outwash at Reynolds Street Beach in Leland, Mich., April 12, 2025.
“Then, we both get through at the same time,” he said. “And I just go, ‘I think my girlfriend’s trying to call, too.’ And she, at the same time, about 20 feet away, says, ‘my boyfriend is stuck in the sand.’” At that point, he said, they became a couple.
“That was literally the first time we defined our relationship. It happened with two separate 911 operators at the same time.”
Emergency responders arrived a few minutes later. They put a life vest on O’Brien and dug around his feet a little. They eventually freed him using a rope lasso.
O’Brien was sore afterward, but said he and Sika are thankful nobody was hurt and that the incident helped cement their relationship. Sika posted photos online a few days later to warn others about being careful around dredging outwash.
The township is posting cautionary signage at the beach warning people to stay away from dredging outwash, said Leland Township Fire Chief Dan Besson.
“This is one of those rare things,” Besson said. “It’s the first time we’ve had an issue.”
Mitchell O’Brien and Breanne Sika were at Reynold’s Beach in Leland on April 12, 2025 when O’Brien sank into a quicksand hole at the shoreline.
O’Brien said the area of loose sand was just small enough to swallow him, but not large enough to pull in others.
“It seemed like there was only a very small amount around me of unstable sand,” he said. “They could walk up pretty close to where I was and the sand was holding their weight.”
O’Brien, who lives in Interlochen and grew up going to the beach in Leland, said he’s encountered quicksand-like conditions at other Lake Michigan beaches before, but only around creek mouths where he sank up to his knees.
“We’re kind of choosing to laugh about it,” he said. But he suggested beachgoers be mindful of the potential hazard.
“Just be careful,” he said. “Don’t go alone. Make sure there’s one or more cell phones available.”
