KENOSHA, Wis. — The body of a missing scuba diver was recovered near the S.S. Wisconsin shipwreck off the coast of Lake Michigan in Pleasant Prairie.
The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office confirms that the diver was identified as 72-year-old Patrick Kelly of Winthrop Lake, Illinois.
The United States Coast Guard received a distress call from a boat at the S.S. Wisconsin shipwreck on September 10th around 11:30 a.m. The caller said a scuba diver had not returned to the surface.
Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office said “the search for the missing diver soon became a recovery operation due to the amount of time that the diver had been missing”. Search efforts paused for the evening of September 10 due to poor water conditions. When the search resumed on September 11, the missing scuba diver was recovered around 10:15 a.m.Â
Kelly had been diving around the shipwreck of the S.S. Wisconsin approximately 6 miles out in water over 120 feet deep off the Village of Pleasant Prairie coastline. When he did not resurface, his wife, who was on board their vessel, sent out a distress call.
Using a combination of sonar and several Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), Kelly was located approximately 125ft below the surface on the bottom of Lake Michigan in the area of the S.S. Wisconsin. Recovery efforts were successful in bringing him back to the surface.
