Recovery
Mission After For 2 Fishermen Disappear On Kankakee River
By Jermont
Terry CBS 2 Chicago
May 7, 2020
KANKAKEE, Ill. (CBS) —
Two fishermen on the water were swept into the Kankakee River in Kankakee
Thursday afternoon, and hours later, rescue efforts turned to recovery. As CBS 2’s Jermont
Terry reported, witness said the men were there one minute and underwater the
next.
There was swift
current along the river Thursday night, and that played a factor in the two men
going under. That witness was out fishing himself – one moment, he was talking
to men, and the next, they were drifting down river. Dive teams searched will
into the night Thursday along the Kankakee River after the men went under near
the Washington Avenue Bridge. A 911 call brought the divers into the murky
water.
Tony Gooden was out
fishing when he spotted a man trying to dock his boat. “He’s trying to anchor
the boat while the propeller was running. He had got snagged,” Gooden said. “So
he took his knife and cut the anchor line, and the boat, basically, drifts
towards the dam.”
Gooden and his son did
not think much of it until minutes later, something besides the boat caught his
eye near the dam. “We’ve seen the bodies, but the guys just floating down the
river,” Gooden said. The Kankakee fire chief said the fishermen where both on
the boat when for reasons unknown, they went into distress and into the river.
“At this point, we
have several mutual aid departments on the scene. We’re using a variety of
different types of boats to do a search, and we believe to be in a recovery
mode at this point, and we have not found anybody now,” said Kankakee Fire
Chief Damon Schuldt.
The fire chief said
the river has a deep pocket throughout. He said divers scoured a 300-foot-wide,
and a quarter- to half-mile radius of the river.That search in the chilly
waters lasted until sunset. On Thursday night, many questions surrounded the
drownings, but the biggest concern was to recover the bodies.
For Gooden, he wishes
he could have done more. “Man, it’s just a tragic situation, you know, that we
all have to witness, you know, for something like that to happen – where you
know kids was around and everything like that,” he said.
The recovery efforts
will resume Friday morning. It’s believed the two men are from the Kankakee
area.
