Burbank Man Dies After Friend Pulls Him from Pistakee Lake

By AMIE SCHAENZER (Patch Staff)

A Burbank man has died after his friend found him floating face down in Pistakee Lake in Lake County (IL) on Monday night.

The McHenry County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Daniel G. Schwenk, 58, of Burbank,. Schwenk died at Centegra Hospital in McHenry after his friend, Brian E. Kane, 50, of Oak Lawn, pulled him from the lake.

Authorities said the victim hit his head before falling into the lake, according to the Chicago Tribune. The coroner’s office believes drowning played a major role in the death but a toxicology report and autopsy should shed more light on the cause, according to the coroner’s office press release.

Kane and Schwenk had been boating together when they pulled to shore and tied the boat to a pier in the 35000 block of Marine Drive in unincorporated Fox Lake at 5:09 p.m. Monday, according to a Lake County Sheriff’s Office press release.

Kane went into a house for about 10 minutes when the incident occurred, police said.

When he came back out, he found Schwenk floating face down in an inlet next to a dock, according to the coroner’s office press release.

He pulled the victim from the water and yelled for a help and a neighbor called 911. Schwenk was taken to to Centegra McHenry Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead.

The incident remains under investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Technical Crash Investigations Unit and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources