Two Illinois Men Drown, Two Missing In Wisconsin Canoe Accident
Updated 1/4/2016 - 2:40 p.m.
(CBS) – The search has resumed for two of four young men who fell into a frigid lake in Wisconsin early Sunday, when the canoe they were in capsized.
The bodies of the two other men who were in the canoe were recovered Sunday morning. The four young men, all in their early 20s, attended New Trier High School in north suburban Winnetka.
The Walworth County Sheriff's office identified the two drowning victims as Lanny Patrick Sack, 20, and Christopher J. McQuillan, 21.
They were staying with a larger group of friends at house on Lake Beulah and went outside around 2:30 a.m. Sunday to smoke cigarettes as the others were retiring, said Jason Roberts, a warden for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
It wasn't until around 9 a.m. that the other friends realized the four were missing. Footprints in the snow led to a boathouse, and an overturned canoe was discovered along a rim of ice, Roberts said.
"They walked on to the boathouse, and they saw that … the canoe that was in there was gone. From there, they saw some tracks on the edge of the ice, right along the shoreline, and they looked out into the lake, and they saw an overturned canoe," Roberts said.
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First-responders quickly recovered two bodies in a section of water 8 feet to 12 feet deep, but they suspended the recovery effort at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
"Obviously, the circumstances of the water temperature and the time that they may have gone in the water precluded any rescue," East Troy Police Chief Jim Surges said. "If we get one or two cold nights, the whole lake will freeze over. That's how cold the water is. It's dangerous to be on the water at night. It's dangerous to be on the water when it's really cold, so you combine any of those, and it leads to a very tragic situation."
Divers returned to the lake Monday morning to resume the search for the other two men.
Roberts said the temperature of the water in the lake is just above freezing, so divers will rotate in and out of the water as they continue the search for the other two men on Monday.
The group of friends that had remained at the house told investigators everyone had been drinking before the accident, he said. There was no indication the four victims had taken flotation devices with them, and the two bodies that were recovered indicated the men were not properly dressed for cold-weather paddling, Roberts said.
"A lot of poor decisions collided," Roberts said.
