The family of a young boy who drowned in the Chicago River has sued the operator of a tug and barge that they claim caused a wake that capsized their boat.
Victor Lobato Ochoa, 7, was thrown from the family’s 16-foot motorboat by the passing wake of a tug pushing a barge on the South Branch of the Chicago River early on the evening of last July 22. The boats were operating in a no-wake zone.
The lawsuit says a report from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources claimed the cause of the accident was the “force of the wake” from the tug and barge. Combined, the tug and barge were 271 feet long.
Victor was on the boat with his parents, his three siblings and some family friends. He was wearing a lifejacket, but he was trapped under the boat when it capsized. Divers from the Chicago Fire Department found him after more than 20 minutes. A helicopter flew Victor to a Chicago hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“If the boat has been, speedwise, slower, everything would have been fine because we were going home,” Victor’s father, Jesus Lobato, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mike Gallagher, the family’s lawyer, said, “This wake had a reverberating effect, where it would bounce off the wall of the river and then basically clash together, compounding the effect.”
The lawsuit seeks damages from the four companies that operate the tug and barge. Read more:
