CHICAGO — Celebrations ended tragically this month in Lake Michigan’s “Playpen” area when a boat rammed into a mom of two, leaving her without feet, and another boating accident claimed the life of a man remembered as a “great dad and a great brother.”
Friday afternoon, as Lana Batochir got her vitals taken for the umpteenth time at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she’s been since an Aug. 13 boating crash, she reflected about the accident.
“It’s definitely a very unexpected thing to have happen in your life,” Batochir told the Tribune on a telephone call from her room on Friday afternoon.
Batochir, 36, is a stay-at-home mom to two kids: her 6-year-old daughter Zoe and 12-year-old son Enzo, both of whom she hasn’t even seen yet since the tragedy.
The Playpen is a no-wake boating hot spot, just south of Oak Street Beach and north of Navy Pier, where powerboats often raft together and a see-and-be-seen crowd soaks up perfect skyline views. The area is popular with boaters because of the dampening effect the breakwalls have on the waves, which means the Playpen’s waters tend to be calmer even if it’s choppy out on the lake, said Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, whose ward covers the Playpen.
A boat plowed into Batochir while she was on an inflatable raft, her husband and close friends nearby. They were celebrating the wedding of a Michigan couple who brought their boat to town.
“It felt like a nightmare, I almost died. The fact that I’m still here giving my vitals … I definitely feel lucky.”
In a heart-wrenching video she taped earlier in the week from her hospital bed, Batochir said the hardest part of the whole ordeal remains being away from her kids for so long.
Batochir still hasn’t seen Enzo and Zoe.
“I just want to hug them and kiss them,” she said, wiping away tears.
She is happy that she will be able to see them grow up, and graduate from high school and college.
“Even though I don’t have legs, I have my arms … my mind,” Batochir said.
Thinking of those things “really keeps me going,” she said in the video.
On Friday, Batochir said she was hoping to possibly be able to walk again in about two months, with the help of prosthetics.
“It depends on how the stitches and how my wounds are healing and how soon I can put pressure on my legs. I’m not in a rush.
“It’s definitely going to be a long journey.”
Batochir is determined to continue the real estate course she was taking when the accident happened, so she can get her brokerage license.
“It’s not going to stop me,” Batochir said of her injuries.
On the Saturday afternoon of her accident, Batochir and her husband and friends were celebrating, trying to end the summer right.
She was on small inflatable raft with others, including her husband, until a few minutes before the accident.
“We were just hanging out enjoying our Saturday. The raft was attached to our boat so it doesn’t drift away.
“The next thing you know another boat was getting way too close. … We yelled: ‘Yo! You’re way too close!’”
Then, the unthinkable happened.
“The boat engine just started full throttle and backed into us. It happened in a second. I was run over by the boat. I was caught up in the propeller, and that’s when my feet were chopped.”
Knowing how strong and powerful the propellers are, she thought the worst.
“I’m just gonna die. This is it. I just let my body go. I closed my eyes and thought of my kids.”
But moments later, her eyes opened.
“I was still alive and my husband was searching for me.”
Her husband dived in, grabbed her and swam both of them to safety.
As he hauled her through the 70-degree water, she told him, “Babe, my feet are gone. My feet are gone,” but he didn’t believe her and stayed positive until she was up on the boat.
Then he lost it.
“He started screaming, cursing,“ she said. “He saw my right foot completely gone and my left foot was hanging on by my ankle skin.”
Now, in the safety of the hospital, Batochir can’t wait to see Enzo and Zoe, which could be as soon as Monday.
She and her husband only recently told their kids what really happened, so that they wouldn’t find out at school.
“My son wanted to FaceTime and talk to me,” she said. “He said, ‘Momma, no matter what, I love you.’”
Zoe also FaceTimed her.
“She’s a smart, savvy kid. She did cry right away. She said, ‘Momma, I’m crying a lot for you but you’re going to be OK.’ These kids are just amazing.”
Attorney Michael Ditore of Corboy & Demetrio said they were carrying out a probe of Batochir’s crash. “We’re in an investigatory phase,” Ditore said.
The U.S. Coast Guard is conducting their own investigation.
Four days after Batochir’s accident, another celebration at the Playpen ended tragically as 29-year-old Spencer Williams plunged into the lake and went missing for days until his body was found last Saturday.
His older sister, Chrystal Tucker, shared her memories of him on Friday.
“He was a very sweet, humble person,” said Tucker. “Spencer will definitely be missed.”
Williams’ body was found Aug. 21, four days after he went missing near the Jardine Water Purification Plant. Another person who’d also fallen in the water was left in critical condition.
Williams was aboard a boat rented by friends at their workplace, the U.S. Postal Service, to celebrate one of their colleagues’ birthdays.
Williams had lots of friends and loved having a good time with people he loved, according to his sister.
But he didn’t know how to swim and was not wearing a life vest, Tucker said. She wishes someone would have forced them to. Tucker is angry that some people who own boats don’t supply what is needed “in case of an emergency.”
“You’re taking a risk. Nobody was wearing a vest. Not a soul,” she said of the other boaters with Williams.
Williams and his siblings, also including an older brother, grew up on Chicago’s South Side. Williams graduated from Perspectives High School, where he ran track and played football, said Tucker.
He went on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined a fraternity.
“He was everything good. It’s not just because he’s my brother,” Tucker said. “He was successful in everything he did.”
He was a proud dad, and his 7-year-old son doesn’t fully realize he is gone. The boy does remember when everyone was looking for him, Tucker said.
“He knew he was lost in the water,” Tucker said.
Father and son would always get haircuts the same time, and Williams would videotape the visits.
“He was a really good spirit,” Tucker said.
Tucker remembers a recent phone call, the last time they communicated.
“He told me he loved me. He told me how proud he was of me.”
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