When Keith Cormican got an urgent phone call Sept. 5 asking his nonprofit search and recovery organization to locate a missing diver who’d gone on a deep sea exploration in Lake Michigan, he wasted no time.
The phone call came from the dive charter company that had taken Naperville oral surgeon Michael “Mike” Jones, 54, on a technical deep-water dive to explore a shipwreck more than 20 miles out from the shore around Evanston and Wilmette.
They contacted Cormican’s volunteer organization, called Bruce’s Legacy, based in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, about two hours after Jones failed to return to the surface.
Having traveled across the U.S. teaching rescuers how to deploy advanced deep-sea technology, like side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles, to locate and recover drowning victims, Cormican knew what needed to be done.
Still, this job presented challenges he’d never encountered before.
“The U.S. Coast Guard contacted me, (and) asked me my capabilities,” Cormican told Pioneer Press. They said they couldn’t engage him to recover the body, however.
That evening, Cormican received a message from Jones’ family — they wanted him to go out and look for Jones.
Jones’ loved ones described him as an avid explorer, athlete and family-oriented man with a “passion for life,” as detailed in his obituary.
“He was just going to be a missing person,” Jones’ fiancée Lisa Skarzynski recalled to Pioneer Press after learning no search party boats would be sent out to find him. “I just couldn’t let that happen.”
If Bruce’s Legacy or another search organization hadn’t recovered Jones’ body, it would have remained more than 150 feet below the surface, likely forever, Cormican acknowledged.
The U.S. Coast Guard rarely engages in deep-sea body recovery, according to Lieutenant Junior Grade Sophia Madison, the public affairs officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Lake Michigan.
Madison told Pioneer Press while there are divers in the Coast Guard, the unit does not operate a deep-sea diving team.
“We don’t necessarily not do recoveries, however, that’s just not within our jurisdiction predominately,” she said.
Cormican said he contacted the Coast Guard Milwaukee Dispatch Center on his way down from Wisconsin to let them know he was headed out to recover Jones the following morning.
“That’s when they informed me that they would not be sending any boats out to assist in this case, nor would they be able to transport the missing diver…their indication was that’s not in their policy to transport [recovered victims].”
“They save lives above the surface,” he recalled.
Bruce’s Legacy has extensive experience in locating victims hundreds of feet below the surface and recovering their bodies, but was unequipped, Cormican said, in bringing victims back to land without the assistance of the Coast Guard or specialized local marine units.
U.S. Coast Guard Station Chicago did not immediately respond to a Pioneer Press request for comment on their role in recovery efforts.
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Cormican told emergency personnel he didn’t need help in locating Jones; it was transporting him back to shore that would prove to be the challenge.
“[The representative] just informed me that this decision came from higher up the command…They would be sending no boats [to bring him back to shore].”
But after getting in contact with the Chicago Police Department’s Marine Unit, Bruce’s Legacy received the go ahead they needed to set out on their search.
“We located [Jones] within just a couple of minutes,” Cormican said, once his team reached the designated shipwreck location the following morning, Sept. 6.
“I’m a wreck diver as well, I’ve dove hundreds of dives out in the Great Lakes and I got enough information to know where he’d be and so we dropped the ROV [remotely operated vehicle] down and we could see him immediately.”
Over 20 miles out from the coastline of Chicago’s North Shore, Cormican said his team contacted Chicago’s Marine Unit to share their location and awaited responders’ arrival.
“We assumed that they were on their way, and so now we’re sitting there waiting. After some time goes by, we ask for an ETA for the Marine Patrol, and that’s when we were informed that they were not able to come out, and the Coast Guard asked us if we were able to transport this gentleman to shore,” he said.
“In all my years of doing this, I’ve never transported a victim to shore. It’s always been local authorities that show up.”
The Chicago Police Department’s Marine Unit did not immediately return a Pioneer Press request for comment on their response efforts.
After originally planning to dock in Evanston, local authorities told Cormican’s team they needed to head a few miles north to Wilmette Harbor, where Brucy’s Legacy could be received by local authorities and Jones’ family.
“Wilmette is the hero in this mess,” Cormican said of the many emergency response organizations he contacted for support in Jones’ recovery.
Wilmette Village Manager Michael Braiman said in a statement that while the village “was not party to the private search operation,” Wilmette police and fire responded to Wilmette Harbor upon notification of Bruce’s Legacy’s dock arrival.
The Wilmette Fire Department confirmed to Pioneer Press that officers were present at the harbor to aid in recovery efforts and followed all procedures necessary before turning the investigation over to Wilmette police and the U.S. Coast Guard.
“That’s really all we wanted,” Jones’ fiancée Skarzynski said, “was to bring him home and make sure we can get his dive computers and tanks all analyzed by the right people” to understand what happened.
“Without Bruce’s Legacy, Mike would still be underneath the water, and [Cormican] brought him home,” Skarzynski added.
In a social media post about the recovery effort, Cormican thanked Bruce’s Legacy volunteers, as well as the Great Lakes Search and Rescue team and Wilmette first responders for their assistance.
“At the end of every search, this is what matters most — bringing a loved one home and giving a family the answers they have been waiting for,” the volunteer organization wrote.
Cormican said the non-profit was created to honor his late brother, Bruce Cormican, a Black River Falls firefighter who died on a recovery mission to rescue a drowning victim in 1995.
It was the brothers’ collective goal to create a dive rescue unit for their home in Jackson County, Wisconsin. After Bruce’s death, Cormican said he made it his mission to see it through.
“My brother died because he was doing things that he wasn’t especially trained in…our goal is to get people trained, utilize high-end equipment like this to get divers out of the water.”
Since the organization’s founding in 2013, Cormican said the group has recovered over 80 drowning victims.
In lieu of flowers, Jones’ family has called for contributions to Bruce’s Legacy, among other non-profits.