A black two-door car carrying three people drove into Lake Michigan just before 1 a.m. Saturday in the 800 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, sending all three swimming to shore before they were hospitalized. Chicago Police say a 26-year-old man suffered a dislocated shoulder, while two 19-year-old men suffered minor injuries in the crash near Streeterville.
All three occupants were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in fair condition after making it out of the submerged vehicle and swimming to land, according to FOX 32 Chicago. It remains unclear who was behind the wheel at the time of the crash, and police have not said what caused the driver to lose control and end up in the water, as first reported by WGN-TV.
A Rough 12 Hours Along the Same Stretch of Roadway
The lake plunge came less than eight hours after a separate multi-vehicle collision just blocks away, in the 500 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, that left four people hospitalized, including a child in serious-to-critical condition. That Friday evening crash, detailed by CBS Chicago, drew a Chicago Fire Department response around 5:15 p.m., meaning two serious incidents unfolded along the same Streeterville corridor within roughly half a day.
The pattern isn't new to this stretch of lakefront roadway. On August 13, three young adults were hospitalized after a blue sedan sideswiped another vehicle, struck a median, and caught fire in the 1000 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, the station's report noted. And on July 25, a 20-year-old motorcyclist was killed in the 2200 block after losing control, striking a barrier, and falling into oncoming traffic — a crash Hoodline covered in its own report on the fatal wreck.
Not the First Time the Lake Itself Has Turned Deadly
Water emergencies just off the drive aren't limited to vehicles losing control on pavement. On July 16, a 39-year-old man drowned after Chicago Police Marine Unit officers pulled him from Lake Michigan in the 800 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive near the area known as the Playpen, according to a report from CBS Chicago. He was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the same facility where Saturday's three car crash victims were treated.
Just days before that, a separate water rescue near 31st Street Beach on August 16 ended with one man dead and another hospitalized after three men fell into the lake along concrete harbor structures past operating hours, as Hoodline previously reported. Water emergencies along the city's shoreline fall under the joint response of the Chicago Police Marine Unit and the Chicago Fire Department Dive Team, which together patrol 27 miles of city shoreline and 80 square miles of Lake Michigan, per Coffee or Die Magazine.
A Notoriously Tricky Curve — and a Study Years in the Making
The stretch of DuSable Lake Shore Drive near Streeterville sits close to the sharp Oak Street S-curve, where the standard 40 mph speed limit drops to 25 mph and is reinforced with warning signs, flashing beacons, and skid-resistant pavement, according to CBS News. That curve alone recorded nearly 200 crashes in 2020, underscoring why the roadway has drawn scrutiny from transportation officials for years.
The Illinois and Chicago Departments of Transportation have been studying a fix through their Redefine the Drive initiative, a multi-year effort to overhaul seven miles of the roadway between Grand Avenue and Hollywood Avenue by softening sharp curves and eliminating the Chicago Avenue traffic light, according to Courthouse News Service. Planners presented updated design options as part of that study in August 2024, though the project remains ongoing.
How Saturday's car ended up in the lake — whether it bypassed shoreline barriers or left the roadway some other way — has not been explained by police. The circumstances remain part of an open investigation, and it's unclear whether the incident will factor into the broader safety discussions already underway around this section of the drive.
