Boltz put the plane down on the lake. As it began taking on water, Tiffany and Boltz called 911, climbed out, and swam to shallow water to wait for help. The Marathon County Sheriff's Office said crews from the Wausau Fire Department reached the two men by airboat at 9:05 p.m. Both were treated at Aspirus Hospital and released; Tiffany needed stitches above his right eye, and Boltz needed four stitches of his own. Neither man suffered serious injury. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating what caused the engine to fail.
"We are just really fortunate," Tiffany told reporters afterward, his voice catching. "We're really fortunate that God was looking after us last night." He also thanked Boltz, the Wausau Fire Department, and the first responders who reached them so quickly. Tiffany's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, offered his own word of thanks, saying he was "grateful to God that Congressman Tiffany and no one else was hurt in this horrifying incident, which could have been a tragedy if not for the heroism of the pilot." Tiffany's campaign says he intends to resume campaigning this week.
What the Dark Water Teaches
A congressman does not pencil into his campaign schedule the minute his engine quits over black water. No man does. That is the plain truth sitting underneath this story, and it is worth more than the headline gives it. One moment Tom Tiffany was a passenger on a short hop home from a dinner in his honor. The next, he was in a lake at night, feeling for the bottom with his feet, hoping the shore was close.
Here is a thing about the Almighty that this old world keeps forgetting until a plane goes down or a doctor calls with bad news: your next breath is not owed to you. It is given. Every single one. A man can chart his calendar, plan his campaign, book his flight — and none of it moves an inch without the hand of God holding the world together underneath him. The Wisconsin congressman said as much himself, plain and unrehearsed, when he said God was looking after him. He is closer to the truth in that one sentence than in most speeches he will give this fall.
Scripture has always known the sea and the storm as the place where a man finds out fast what he actually believes. The old sailors in the Psalms went down into deep waters and their soul melted because of trouble, and they cried out — and the Lord answered.
"Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses." (Psalm 107:28)
That is not a verse about lucky breaks. That is a verse about a God who hears a man in the water and reaches down. Tom Tiffany walked out of that lake. Plenty of good men, in planes and cars and hospital beds, do not walk out. The difference between the two is not in how hard either man prayed. It is in the sovereign hand of the Lord, who numbers a man's days before one of them comes to pass, and who owes no explanation to any of us for where He draws the line.
My friend, that is the whole point of a night like this one. It is a mercy dressed up as a scare. You are not promised the drive home tonight, let alone tomorrow morning.
"For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." (James 4:14)
A vapor does not negotiate for more time. It is here, and then it is gone. So the question a plane in a lake ought to put to every reader is not "wasn't that a close call for him" but "am I ready for mine." The gospel does not wait for open water or a failing engine to be true. Christ died for sinners and rose again so that a man does not have to swim for shore hoping he did enough — he can stand on solid ground now, today, forgiven, because the work is already finished. Tom Tiffany got a second chance at an ordinary Tuesday. Take yours.