Crews search Fox River in St. Charles to recover missing kayaker

Rescue crews have been searching the Fox River in St. Charles since 10 p.m. Tuesday night for a missing kayaker.

St. Charles and federal agencies were working to recover the body of the missing person whose kayak overturned while fishing.

At a Wednesday morning news conference at Pottawatomie Park, St. Charles Fire Chief Jeremy Mauthe and Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police Captain Josh Mooi said two adult male kayakers were fishing together when one overturned just south of Ferson Creek Fen around 9:30 p.m.

Authorities offered an update later Wednesday saying the kayaker still had not been found and that the search was halted for the day.

“It sounds like one of the kayakers tipped, fell out of his boat, and hasn’t been seen since,” Mauthe said. “The other kayaker was able to paddle safely to Ferson Creek.”

IDNR Public Information Officer Brandon Damm reported Wednesday that the kayak was overturned by another boat’s wake.

At the news conference, Mauthe said it is assumed that the boat was involved, but that is still under investigation.

Mooi said officials were able to contact the operator of the boat Tuesday night, but the boat’s involvement is still under investigation.

“Despite extensive efforts, the individual has not been located,” Mauthe said. “The operation has transitioned from rescue to recovery.”

Mauthe said that during the initial search, crews had six boats in the water with teams of divers with sonar equipment. He said they mapped out the river from the last sighting of the kayaker to the dam and thoroughly searched every area pinged by sonar.

After seven hours of searching, Mauthe said they decided to pause the search at 5 a.m. and resumed it at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

“Prior to concluding the search this morning, we were fairly certain that we got every conceivable area that we could search from,” Mauthe said.

He said the water conditions have been calm since the incident with virtually no current; however the murky conditions of the river have posed a major challenge to the search.

“The Fox River is a very dark and murky river. It’s got a lot of different objects in there. … We found several items last night that we thought were potentially a person, tires and things of that sort,” Mauthe said. “It’s not a clean, easy river to search. It’s very wide, it varies in depth and it has a lot of murkiness and muck inside of there.”

Mauthe said the recovery operations Wednesday would expand on the initial search area and continue using sonar to find areas they believe the individual could be, and then teams of divers and will search each individual spot.

When asked how long the search would continue, he said, “Until we can find the individual, that’s what our plan is. …The boats aren’t going to sink and the divers are going to still be in the water no matter what.”

Mauthe and Mooi did not release information on the any additional information about the missing person but reported that the kayak was found. Mooi said whether the kayaker was wearing a life jacket is still under investigation.

Mauthe said he could not recall a situation similar to this in his 21 years with the department, and his hope is that the next update will be to announce that a body has been recovered.

During the search, mutual aid from 29 area fire departments was utilized to assist in the search effort, according to the release.