EAST CHICAGO, Ind.. — A search was resuming Sunday for a man who went missing after a boat he was on capsized in Lake Michigan near East Chicago on Saturday. Three other men were rescued.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Coast Guard received a call around 2:15 p.m. that a boat had capsized near the East Chicago Marina, IDNR officials said. Four men were on the 16-foot pleasure boat when it capsized, WLS-TV Chicago reported. The men ranged in age from 19 to 50.
IDNR Officer Alex Neel said three of the four were able to put on life jackets. Two of those men were rescued by the Coast Guard after being spotted by a Chicago Fire Department helicopter. A third man was picked up by a good Samaritan after spending about two hours in 50-degree water.
“They said that he was holding on to the seat cushion, and that’s what he held on, and that’s when they found him. He had been holding on to the seat cushion, so the seat cushion helped him,” Karl Samuel, the harbormaster of East Chicago Marina, told WLS-TV.
The three men were taken two a local hospital, where two were treated for hypothermia and one was in critical condition, authorities said.
They planned to conduct surface and sonar searches Sunday in an attempt to find the fourth man.
