‘Clearheaded’ woman rescues husband, boating pals

With a storm blowing in from the west, Mary Kovats looked east over Lake Michigan, counting the boats as they came in to Montrose Harbor.

One. Two. Soon five, maybe six came back.

But not her husband’s.

Peter Kovats was celebrating his 62nd birthday Wednesday with two friends aboard his 19-foot boat, the Peter Pan. His wife had talked to him by phone about 7:45 p.m. to warn him about the approaching storm.

He told her they were having a good time but were coming in because of the weather.

Time passed. Mary Kovats, recounting the ordeal a day later, said she finally could wait no longer and went for help at the Montrose Harbor-based Chicago Corinthian Yacht Club, where she is the rear commodore.

Jacob Karlin and David Stix volunteered. The quickly assembled crew of veteran sailors boarded the club’s 22-foot power boat and motored into the churning lake.

“We all knew exactly what to do, and we just did it,” said Mary Kovats, 48. “Like we’ve all been trained on how to get a person out of the water. … These two gentlemen from the yacht club, if they weren’t there I couldn’t have done it. I didn’t do it by myself.”

The club’s commodore, Mel Levy, was in touch with Mary Kovats by phone throughout the search.

“She was worried and obviously upset but she was surprisingly calm, considering,” Levy said. “She was very clearheaded.”

After only about 15 minutes, Mary Kovats and her crew came upon the Peter Pan about a mile off shore. The boat was upright but swamped with water. Peter Kovats and his fellow sailors were nowhere in sight.

“I didn’t expect to find a boat with nobody on it,” Mary Kovats said Thursday afternoon. “That I did not expect to find. … That was a terrifying moment.”

But a short time later they came upon the Peter Pan’s crew.

“I saw something bobbing in the water in the distance, and I told the guy who was driving the boat,” Kovats said. “We rushed over there, and it was Peter.”

The other two men called for help and were also hoisted aboard the power boat.

The fast-moving storm had flipped the Peter Pan, tossing the three men, all wearing life jackets, into the water. The men tried, maybe 10 times, to right the vessel. But it kept capsizing. The three sailors drifted away from the boat and apart from each other.

Now the three frigid sailors huddled aboard the power boat as it raced back to the harbor, where yacht club members had gathered blankets and extra clothing. Ambulances arrived moments later.

One of the rescued men was able to walk into the club’s building on his own. But Peter Kovats and a second man were shivering so badly they could barely speak, Levy said.

The men probably had been in the water for up to 45 minutes, a Fire Department spokesman said. The lake’s temperatures were estimated in the upper 30s or lower 40s, said the National Weather Service.

Peter Kovats was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in fair condition Thursday evening. The two other men were treated at Illinois Masonic and released.

Levy noted how quickly conditions can change on the lake, catching even experienced sailors by surprise.

“That storm hit, and it hit really hard,” Mary Kovats said. “We did what we had to do. We all are experienced sailors. Everything happened the way it was supposed to.”

The rescue effort drew high praise from the yacht club’s commodore.

“They did a great job and should be commended,” Levy said. “I’m really proud of everyone who rallied around to help them when they got to shore and averted a disaster. I mean, if they didn’t go out there, the story would probably be different.”

Tribune reporters David Elsner and William Lee contributed.

asweeney@tribune.com, rhaggerty@tribune.com and cdizikes@tribune.com