Lawsuit Update: Lake Michigan search for missing boaters suspended

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CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Fire Department says the search for people who were on a boat that capsized on Lake Michigan has been suspended for the night.


The fire department posted the update on its Twitter feed Sunday evening.

The Coast Guard says there were apparently four or six people onboard the 30-foot boat when it capsized Saturday night several miles from shore.

Authorities say a man pulled from the 60-degree water Sunday morning is hospitalized in critical condition. Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Levi Read said the man was in a "hypothermic state" and had given conflicting information.

A woman was found alive several hours later, but she died.

The boat was traveling between New Buffalo, Michigan, and the Chicago area.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A woman on a boat that capsized miles from Chicago's shoreline died Sunday after being pulled from Lake Michigan, and the U.S. Coast Guard said crews were conducting an air and water search for as many as four other people.

The Cook County medical examiner's office confirmed the woman's death Sunday afternoon, but had no other details. A fisherman pulled a man who had been on the boat from the lake around 6:15 a.m. Sunday. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Rescuers pulled the woman from the 60-degree water a few hours later.

It's not clear whether there were four or six people board the 30-foot boat that capsized about five to seven miles from shore Saturday night.

Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Levi Read said the rescued boater is in a "hypothermic state" and has given conflicting information.

"Because of his state, he's changed his story several times during questioning and while he was getting medical care," Read said. "As a precaution we're searching for more, rather than less."

The boat was traveling between New Buffalo, Michigan, and the Chicago area.

"Apparently something happened really fast and they either didn't have a radio or their radio was broken," Read said.

Ron Dornecker, head of Chicago Fire Department Marine and Dive operations, said crews were searching for two of the boaters about six miles from the 31st Street Harbor.

"We're searching a very large area out there," Dornecker said. "When the people did enter the water last night, they were separated. It was nighttime. They could be, at this point, miles apart."

He warned that the boaters were in "very cold water," but said all who remain missing are believed to be wearing flotation devices.

The search includes helicopters and an airplane, as well as boats.

http://news.msn.com/us/1-dead-after-boat-capsizes-on-lake-michigan
 
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Coast Guard ended a search for two people missing after a boat capsized in Lake Michigan. Two others were rescued, one of whom died.

Ashley Haws, 26, and an unidentified man, 29, were pulled from the water Sunday morning hours after their boat sank. Haws was pronounced dead at the hospital. The unidentified man is hospitalized in stable condition with hypothermia. The identities of the two missing boaters have not been released.

Officials believe the boat was returning to Burnham Harbor from New Buffalo, Michigan, when it caught fire and sank about seven miles off 31st Street. The radio may have also malfunctioned.

"If they had some kind of power failure, they may not have been able to make a distress call," Officer Mark Stevens of the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The unidentified man was pulled to safety around 6 a.m. Sunday by Joel Reiser, the captain of a charter fishing boat, hours after his boat sank.

"We spotted something orange, thought it was a kayak," Reiser said. "We slowed up the boat and looked around and actually saw someone's head in between. It was actually four personal floatation devices. We spun around. He yelled for help. We threw a life ring to him and brought him into the boat."

Two hours later, Haws was located and taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The Coast Guard and Chicago Fire Department and Chicago Police Marine units searched for the missing boaters throughout the day Sunday. There has been no sign of the boat, officials said, although life jackets and other debris have been found in the lake.

Haws is survived by her parents and a brother. She grew up in Green Bay, Wis., and lived in Chicago's Lincoln Park. She was a family law attorney at Davi Law Group.

"She had the ability to connect with people. Everybody who came in contact with Ashley immediately fell in love with her, her personality, her smile," Dion Davi said.
"When the news came, there was a feeling of complete disbelief, numbness that is still lingering, very hard to believe."

One of her favorite sayings was "live to dream," according to her mother.


http://abc7chicago.com/news/boat-capsize-victim-idd-as-ashley-haws/89125/
 
The Coast Guard plans to question the only survivor of a boating accident on Lake Michigan.

The man was pulled from the water Sunday morning after the boat capsized on a trip from New Buffalo, Michigan to Burnham Harbor.

26-year-old Ashley Haws died after going overboard.

The boat’s owner and a woman in her 20′s are missing and presumed dead; the Coast Guard says it has no plans to resume its search for their bodies.



Read more: http://wgntv.com/2014/06/03/coast-guard-will-question-surviving-boater/#ixzz33aBa30Ex
 
Coast Guard Ends Hunt for 2 Lake Michigan Boaters

CHICAGO June 2, 2014 (AP)
By DON BABWIN Associated Press

Without spotting so much as a scrap from a missing 30-foot boat in the chilly waters of Lake Michigan that turn deadly after about six hours, authorities stopped searching Monday for two people who apparently jumped into the water over the weekend.

"The Coast Guard searches for people we believe are alive and with the temperatures out there, the equipment they had ... we don't believe they survived," Coast Guard spokesman Levi Read said.

Two people were pulled from the water: the first was a man who was spotted by a fisherman around 6:15 a.m. Sunday; the second was a woman identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office on Monday as Ashley Haws, 26, of Chicago and formerly of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Haws, who was unconscious and in cardiac arrest when she was pulled from the water, was soon pronounced dead. The man remained hospitalized on Monday.

The discovery of the man triggered a massive search covering approximately 1,600 square miles that involved boats, at least one plane and a helicopter, said Read. The search was suspended Sunday night.

The rescued man was confused due to severe hypothermia and gave a number of accounts of what happened, how many people were on board and where they were headed. As a result, rescuers initially thought they were looking for five or six people, Read said.

But as the man warmed up and became more coherent, he told authorities that four people were on the boat when it caught fire Saturday night, forcing them to jump in the water. He had said the boat was sailing from Chicago to New Buffalo, Michigan, but then the man's account changed and he said it was heading from New Buffalo to Chicago, Read said.

Still unanswered, though, is why the people on board did not place a distress call on the radio that was presumably on the boat or attempt to signal other boaters that they were in trouble.

"The Coast Guard heard nothing on the radio, no flares were seen during the night," said Larry Langford, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, which participated in the search.

Nobody reported seeing a fire on the lake and neither the boat nor any debris has been found, Read said.

"Usually, if the boat is intact it will remain afloat and if it doesn't we find some kind of debris," he said.

Both people pulled from the water were wearing life jackets and Read said that even if the two others — a 30-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman — were wearing life jackets, the expected survival time in water that is approximately 60 degrees is only six hours. The search was called off more than 15 hours after the first man was pulled from the water.

The fire department and the Coast Guard have halted their search and the Chicago Police Department said it may resume what is called a "recovery" search Monday.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/coast-guard-ends-hunt-lake-michigan-boaters-23964414
 
Negligence lawsuit filed in boat accident that killed 3

boat service provider's negligence led to a motorboat accident in Lake Michigan in May that killed three people, a lawsuit filed by one victim's mother alleges..

Sharon Haws, mother of Ashley Haws, filed suit Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court against Creative Yacht Management, doing business as SailTime Chicago, a boat owner member program.

According to its website, the company provides boat owners with various services, including maintenance and insurance.

The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to maintain, inspect, repair and equip the boat adequately, leading to the accident.

The lawsuit points out that SailTime did not own the 33-foot motorboat, saying that it was owned by Axess Holding Co. LLC. The boat was en route to Chicago from New Buffalo, Mich., about 7 p.m. May 31 when it experienced mechanical or electrical problems, "forcing its passengers to abandon ship miles from shore," according to the suit.

At the time of the accident that killed three of the four passengers, Coast Guard officials said the boat had no history of problems. It was not until 6 a.m. the next day that the only survivor, Shai Wolkowicki, was spotted adrift on life jackets about 6 miles off Chicago's shoreline and clutching a piece of the boat, which sank.

Haws, 26, was found unconscious a few hours later but died of hypothermia, according to an autopsy report at the time. Haws had received a law degree two years before and landed a job at a small firm in Chicago that specialized in family issues.


mmrodriguez@tribpub.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...an-boat-sinks-lawsuit-met-20141127-story.html
 
did they find the other 2? i wonder if that body that washed up in south haven last week may be one of them. so sad to read this again.

todd
 
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