A Lake Leelanau man is behind bars after he crashed his sport utility vehicle through the guardrail of the M-204 bridge Monday afternoon and ended up in the Lake Leelanau Narrows.

According to county Sheriff’s Department Sgt. James Kiessel, the 42-year-old man was traveling east on 204 when he did not make the slight curve to continue across the bridge. Kiessel said the motorist was traveling fast enough to jump a snowbank, slide along the guardrail, and drop off the south side of the road and down the embankment. The SUV damaged a pine tree and a boat dock before ending up in about three feet of water in the Narrows.

“He damaged one of Fred Plamondon’s docks,” Kiessel said.

A passerby saw the accident and helped the driver and his passenger, another man, get out of the water. Kiessel said the two men went back to the driver’s apartment in Lake Leelanau.

Sheriff Michael F. Oltersdorf said when deputies went to the man’s apartment they issued a preliminary breath test. According to Oltersdorf, the man recorded a blood-alcohol reading of .12, above the legal limit of .08. The driver is facing a drunken driving charge and had not been arraigned in 86th District Court as of yesterday morning.

Kiessel said personnel from the Leland Township and Suttons Bay-Bingham fire and rescue departments were on the scene for more than three hours. Suttons Bay-Bingham members deployed booms to contain gas leaking from the vehicle, and remove the spillages.

Bingham Towing dispatched a tow truck to pull the vehicle from the Narrows, but it became hung up on a breakwall at the shoreline. Jesse LaCross of LaCross Landscaping then brought in a small “Bobcat” tractor and used the back-hoe boom to lift the vehicle up over the breakwall.

Kiessel said the driver will face fine and court costs, and could be looking at an expensive restitution bill. Costs involving a second dock that was damaged in the removal process, and the time for fire and rescue personnel on the scene, may also be billed to the driver.