Naperville water rescue unfounded in DuPage River

The Naperville Fire Department dive team spent a large chunk of Sunday on the DuPage River after a group of friends thought a 20-year-old man had gone under but was found several blocks away unharmed.

After searching near the Weigand Riverfront Park area for more than an hour with multiple boats, the team was alerted to a second situation upstream where a boat with three people capsized.

Once again, the distress call turned up unfounded when the three young adults were seen floating down the river in the boat, which they had righted, according to the fire department.

The original 911 call came in just before 7 p.m. when the friends lost sight of the 20-year-old who had entered the river without an inflatable ring he had been floating on earlier.

A water response team of about 20 Naperville firefighters with the assistance of 11 other police and fire departments combed the shores of the river and sent rescuers downstream to place rescue ropes in the water, said Naperville Division Fire Chief Mark Ziemnik.

“Witnesses stated he never came back up,” Ziemnik said.

A Bolingbrook police officer found the man several blocks from the river, who was uninjured and unaware that anyone had been searching for him, officials said.

The Naperville Fire Department was assisted by the Naperville Police Department, Naperville Park District Police, Bolingbrook Police and eight area fire departments.