CHICAGO — A dead body was pulled from the water near Montrose Harbor early Thursday, hours after the second boating accident in a week in the party-friendly area of Lake Michigan known as the playpen, which left one person in critical condition and another missing.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the man pulled from the water near the harbor at 12:22 a.m. was the same person who had been missing after two people fell from a boat in the playpen around 7 p.m. Wednesday night.
The body was located soon after emergency responders were called to the 200 block of West Montrose Drive for a report of a body in the water, according to Chicago police.
A man whose age was not known was “pulled from the water” by Chicago Fire Department personnel, police said, and he was taken to Weiss Hospital in Uptown where he was pronounced dead at 2:13 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which had not identified the man as of Thursday morning.
The Montrose Harbor call came in a little more than five hours after two people reportedly fell from a boat in the playpen, near the Jardine Water filtration plant. Just before 7 p.m., the Chicago Police Marine Unit responded to reports of a person who fell off a boat in what’s known as Chicago’s “Playpen,” a party-friendly area north of Navy Pier where boats are often anchored and people swim in the lake.
One person was quickly located in the water and they were taken to shore and then to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition, according to a Chicago Police media notification.
But the search for the second missing person had remained in progress as of 8:40 p.m. It was not clear if or when the search for that person had been called off before the Montrose Harbor call.
The 7 p.m. call about two people who had fallen off a boat was the second time in less than a week that people were badly hurt in the playpen.
Saturday night two women, including Lana Batochir, were severely injured in a boating accident. Batochir had been floating on an inflatable raft when a 37-foot yacht suddenly reversed, sucking her under. Batochir underwent a double leg amputation after her feet were severed by the boat’s propeller.
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