Articles labeled: Chicago wind

A toddler who fell in Lake Michigan last month has been taken off his respirator and appears to be improving.

Lazar Ognjenovic, 2, was admitted to Children’s Memorial Hospital on April 18, but he has now been transferred to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

The incident unfolded during a lakefront stroll with his grandfather when a strong wind blew the stroller into the water, officials said. A witness said the grandfather, who could barely swim, jumped in after the boy.

In a statement, the Ognjenovics requested that the public continue to honor their request for privacy “as Lazar enters the next steps toward rehabilitation.”

They don’t call it the Windy City for nothin’, a Serbian Grandfather found out — the hard way.

A two year old boy was swept into chilly Lake Michigan during a storm surge. It was 15 minutes before he was found. The baby is now in critical condition. Not sure if a baby can survive full submersion for that long.

As he clung to the pier at Belmont Harbor, moaning and crying, all the man could do was point down into the dark water.

“Boy!” he said. “Boy! Boy!”
The boy, the man’s 2-year-old grandson, was 10 feet below the water’s surface at the bottom of the harbor, still strapped into his stroller, which had apparently been swept off the breakwater by a strong gust of wind.

“The lower half of his body was in the water,” said witness John Derscheid, who called 911. “I ran over there and he was looking around in the water. He had his head dunked in the water. . . . I said ‘there’s a ladder down here.’ “