Eric Heffernan, a captain for Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry, rescued a teenage girl after she fell between the ferry and the dock Monday, July 14. The girl suffered only minor scratches. Eric Heffernan, a captain for Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry, saved a teenage girl from drowning after she fell under the gangway while the boat was docked on Mackinac Island Monday, July 14.

As the young girl was walking off the boat with a group, she accidentally stepped between the boat and the dock and fell into the water. Capt. Heffernan said she hung onto a dock structural beam just above the water until she was rescued.

Capt. Heffernan, with assistance from another Shepler's captain, Mark Ingilis, and one of the group's chaperones, pulled the girl from the water.

Other than being a little shaken up, cold, and wet, the girl reportedly received only a scratch on her leg from the fall.

"I let her wear my captain's vest for the day to keep warm," said Capt. Heffernan.

Eric Heffernan, originally from Farmington Hills and now living in St. Ignace, has been a captain for Shepler's for the past nine years.