South Haven’s Mayor Annie Brown concluded a June 15 city council meeting by thanking life guards and first responders who saved her husband’s life after he collapsed from cardiac arrest at the city’s South Beach last week.
On June 15, Brown delivered a 2-minute speech before adjourning a city council meeting to thank lifeguards, the South Haven Police Department and Area Emergency Services who performed life-saving measures to her husband, Jeff Fibrandt, after he collapsed on Tuesday morning, June 9.
After swimming in Lake Michigan at South Beach in South Haven, located in the southwest Lower Peninsula, Fibrandt was chatting with lifeguards when he suddenly fell to the ground and became unresponsive, according to The City’s of South Haven’s statement on Facebook.
Seconds before Fibrandt collapsed he said to the lifeguards, “it looks like you are going to have a slow morning,” Brown said.
The lifeguards immediately performed CPR, then deployed an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to revive Fibrandt. He was sent to St. Joseph’s Corewell Lakeland Hospital for further treatment.
“From the moment I walked in the ER, and almost every day, doctors and nurses told me that I should buy lottery tickets because Jeff was lucky to be alive. In fact, one of his doctors said he was alive specifically because trained and highly qualified lifeguards were there to immediately perform CPR and then shock him,” Brown said.
Brown continued, “without bystanders doing CPR and calling 911, a victim of cardiac arrest will die. People who have cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survive only about 10 percent of the time. And only when bystanders call 911, start CPR, and use an AED.”
In fact, lifeguards returned to South Haven’s South Beach — a popular beach destination — on Memorial Day 2026 after not being posted there for 25 years.
In the late 1990s, lifeguards were removed from several beach towns in Michigan including South Haven for staffing and financial short-falls. However, safety advocacy groups have pushed for their return.
Contact Sarah Moore @ smoore@lsj.com
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: South Haven has lifeguards again. They already saved mayor’s husband
Reporting by Sarah Moore, USA TODAY NETWORK / Lansing State Journal
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By Sarah Moore, USA TODAY NETWORK | USA TODAY Network
