CHICAGO (WLS) — Two Chicagoans stranded in Lake Michigan for seven hours lived to tell their tale.
They want others to hear their message: to wear life vests on the water.
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Friends Kristal Howard and Mario Morris described their recent experience on Lake Michigan as still unbelievable. While on Morris’ Sea-Doo for a short trip on Sunday afternoon, they were unexpectedly thrown into the water by a wave near Whihala Beach in northwest Indiana, an event that forever changed their lives.
“It just knocked us off the jet ski, never flipped. We just flew off the jet ski,” Howard said.
“There were jet skis and boats driving past, but we were like peanuts in the water. Nobody could hear us or see us,” Morris said.
It was about 5 p.m. Sunday. Their watercraft was gone, and it was getting dark, but they both had on life vests.
Morris has high blood pressure and damaged lungs, and was struggling, going in and out of consciousness.
“That’s when I felt I couldn’t make it,” Morris said.
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Howard recounted, “I just put my arm through his life jacket, and he laid on me. I turned sideways and kept kicking, telling him, ‘kick your feet to help us move forward.'”
“She didn’t leave me; she didn’t give up on my, she’s like, ‘you got this,'” Morris said.
Howard had been a junior lifeguard in her youth. Now, she’s a mother of two. Morris is a father, too.
Filled with determination, Howard reflected, “I kept thinking, ‘We need to get back to our babies. We have to reunite with our kids,’ especially since he just became a father. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What would my kids do without me?’ There was no way I was giving up like that.”
The two swam and drifted to land, which was the rocky shore of an East Chicago steel mill.
“We here now, and he was like, ‘I’m not going to make it.’ And I say, ‘yes, you is. Come on; come on,'” Howard said.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesperson says several agencies were searching for the two, including the Coast Guard Station Chicago.
“I knew they had life jackets. So, that increases their survival chance so much,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Kurtis Bomba, with the U.S. Coast Guard Station Chicago.
The two were brought to a local hospital and treated for hypothermia, but they survived seven hours in Lake Michigan with only their life vests.
Morris and Howard and all the responding agencies involved in the search urge anyone on the water to wear an appropriately fitting personal flotation device, and to heed warnings about the weather.
On Sunday, there was a small craft advisory warning.
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