19-Sep-16 – For the United States Coast Guard, it has been “a very busy summer” on Lake Michigan and Chicago River, with 29 search and rescues so far, not all of them successful.

So when the crew of a Wendella tour boat rescued a man who had jumped into the Chicago River on June 4, the Coast Guard not only presented them with an award for “excellence in search and rescue” but did so before a meeting of their peers.

At a recent meeting of Chicago Harbor Safety Committee, seven crew members of the passenger vessel Wendella each received the Captain David P. Dobbins Award, named for the first Superintendent of the U.S. Lifesaving Service’s Great Lakes Ninth District.

The unidentified man jumped into the river from the DuSable Bridge at Michigan Avenue at about 10:45 a.m. on June 4. Crew members on the Wendella could see him flailing in the water and got to him first. They used a “man overboard ladder” to reach the man but, unable to pull him aboard, they held onto him for more than ten minutes until divers from Chicago Fire Department took over.

(Left) Crew members of a Wendella tour boat on the Chicago River keep a man’s head above water after he jumped from the west side of the DuSable Bridge in June. Frame from video by Jason Cooper.

Witnesses say the heavy-set man was screaming and seemed disturbed and agitated as he floated face up in the water. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in stable condition.

“The rapid response of the Wendella crew was instrumental in saving this man’s life,” says the Coast Guard.

Receiving the award were Captain Josh Rubin, Aristotle Herrera, Kendall Jackson, Dontanyon Martin, Terry Marx, Matt McLean, and Jack Palumbo.