Michael Jones went missing on Sept. 5 while diving a shipwreck roughly 20 miles off Chicago's shore in Lake Michigan. His body was located four days later at a depth of about 160 feet, recovered not by any government dive team but by volunteer technical divers who then had to figure out how to bring him home across 20 miles of open water.
Jones was an experienced recreational technical diver, according to Divernet. As NBC Chicago reported, the diver went missing on Sept. 5 while on a shipwreck diving trip roughly 20 miles offshore, and the recovery effort that followed presented what the outlet described as difficult and unusual challenges.
The recovery fell to Bruce's Legacy Search & Recovery, a Wisconsin-based volunteer search and recovery nonprofit that was called in to assist, per the same NBC Chicago report. Volunteer specialists Brad Chown and Jeff Haubrich located Jones near the wreck site and brought him to shore, where Wilmette Police and Fire personnel officially received the body and assisted his waiting family, Divernet reported.
Why Local Rescue Teams Couldn't Reach Him
The recovery took place at a depth of about 160 feet and involved specialized technical-diving expertise. Local fire and police departments provided shore-side support, while the offshore recovery was handled by volunteer specialists.
Transporting Jones's body 20 miles across open water without an offshore agency escort was, according to Divernet, an unprecedented task in Bruce's Legacy's recovery history. The group thanked its volunteers along with the Wilmette Fire Department, the Wilmette Police Department, and Great Lakes Search and Rescue for their roles in the operation, per NBC Chicago, and expressed condolences to Jones's family and friends. The search operation required careful planning, specialized equipment, weather monitoring, and safety considerations throughout, the outlet noted.
The Nonprofit Behind the Recovery
Bruce's Legacy was founded in 2013 by Keith Cormican in memory of his brother Bruce Cormican, a firefighter who died in 1995 while trying to rescue someone from a swollen creek, Divernet reported. The 501(c)(3) organization uses side-scan sonar and remotely operated underwater vehicles to recover drowning victims and bring closure to families, according to the same report.
A Familiar Pattern on Great Lakes Wrecks
Jones's death underscores the risks associated with shipwreck diving in the Great Lakes. Drowning statistics across the region also reflect those risks.
Diving a wreck at 160 feet in Lake Michigan is a specialized undertaking that requires careful planning and equipment. Those conditions draw experienced divers to the Great Lakes' remarkably preserved shipwrecks despite the offshore risks.
Lake Michigan's Deadly Toll
The figures cited here include 35 drownings in Lake Michigan out of 65 total across all five Great Lakes so far this year. Water-safety information is relevant to the risks faced by divers and others on the lakes.
Shipwrecks in Illinois waters of Lake Michigan remain legally protected but publicly accessible. Federal law under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, alongside the Illinois Archaeological and Paleontological Resources Protection Act, prohibits disturbing or salvaging artifacts from these sites while keeping them open for non-destructive recreational diving, according to the Chicago Bar Association. Illinois treats the wrecks as archaeological resources, a designation meant to preserve them for future generations of divers even as incidents like Jones's underscore how much risk that access still carries.
