Last April 18 was a warm and blustery day in Chicago. Winds were blowing out of the west at better than 20 knots and the air temperature was headed for the low 70s. Shortly after 2 p.m., Stanko Bojanovic, 65, a Serbian immigrant who spoke little English, decided to take his two- year-old grandson, Lazar Ognjenovic, for a walk in Belmont Harbor on Lake Michigan. He pushed the boy in a stroller, along the pedestrian path atop the seawall. But then Bojanovic accidentally let the stroller go just as a gust of wind came up. It propelled the stroller–and Lazar–off the wall and into 14 feet of 42-degree-Fahrenheit water. Bojanovic dove in after Lazar, but could not rescue the boy. The harbor master pulled Bojanovic out of the lake. The shaken grandfather could only point back to the water and say, “boy, two.” Witnesses called 911.
Fire Department One, a 2007 Bell 412EP, had just finished refueling at Midway Airport when it got the call. Pilots lieutenant Kenneth Straman and firefighter/EMT Anthony Lisanti were up front, while rescue divers/EMTs Brian Otto and William Davis rode in back. Straman juggled the frequencies and Lisanti did the flying. The crew got an expedited departure out of Midway and climbed to 400 feet agl, making a ground speed of close to 150 mph with the brisk tail wind. They were on scene in less than four minutes and pulled into a hover. Otto and Davis jumped into the lake.
