Daywatch: Almost half of Great Lakes drownings this year were in Lake Michigan

Good morning, Chicago.

At least 87 people drowned in the Great Lakes this year, and more than half of the deaths happened in Lake Michigan, according to the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project.

“Drowning is way up there in fatality rates … but it doesn’t get treated like a public health issue — which it is,” said Dave Benjamin, co-founder and executive director of the water safety group, which has tracked drownings in the region for more than 10 years. “It’s one of the leading causes of unintentional injury-related death in the nation, in the world. And that’s with a very poor drowning statistic database, so the problem is exponentially worse than anybody even knows.”

More than 1,300 people have drowned in the Great Lakes since the surf rescue project started collecting data in 2010. The highest number of drownings occurred in 2018 when 117 deaths were recorded.

Read the full story from the Tribune’s Adriana Pérez.

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