CHICAGO (WLS) — Robert Foster has been missing for two days in Lake Michigan, after leaping into the water near the South Side of Chicago.
And while, for search purposes, this is now a recovery mission, his loved ones are still hoping for a miracle.
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They said they are largely in the dark about what is and isn’t being done to find him.
“I don’t have a body. He’s a fighter,” mother Geraldine Armstrong said.
Foster loved being out on Lake Michigan.
On Saturday afternoon, he, his fiancée and four others launched his pontoon boat from Jackson Park Harbor. But, just minutes in, things went wrong.
“We hadn’t even gotten to 63rd beach. It happened right by the wall. We were just conversing, and he was about to play some music when the gas can dislodged,” recalled his fiancée, Charlene Lawrence.
A confident swimmer, Lawrence said Foster jumped into the water after it.
“He immediately jumped up, and took off his shirt, jumped up, unzipped his life vest. He was like, ‘I need to get that. We need that,” Lawrence said.
Within minutes, Foster was in distress.
The high waves made it impossible for him to get back to the boat, which, without an anchor, was drifting farther and farther out into Lake Michigan.
The fire department reports that divers entered the water 16 minutes following the 911 call. However, the exact spot to search was unknown. Despite assistance from a helicopter armed with cameras and heat sensors, they could not locate him.
Two other divers from a rescue boat that had been sent to help those still stranded on the pontoon also made an attempt.
“They put on their diving gear, and jumped into the water. But, in the midst of them trying to find him, there was another rescue that they had to go. They had to stop looking for him,” Lawrence said.
According to the fire department, by that time it had been around 90 minutes since Foster first went into the water, reclassifying the search from a rescue to a recovery, which turns the responsibility over to the police department’s marine unit.
All of this, however, is of little consolation to Lawrence or to Foster’s mother, who lived with her son.
“That’s my only son. That’s my only child. We’ve been together. He said, ‘mom, I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to take care of you forever,'” Armstrong said.
The police department’s marine unit said they conducted a sight and sonar search Monday morning, and were going to go out again later in the day.
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