Loved ones and friends of Patrick Kelly are remembering the 72-year-old diver as a friendly, family man after his body was recovered from Lake Michigan Wednesday.
Kelly, of Winthrop Harbor, went missing in Lake Michigan Tuesday after he failed to resurface on a dive exploring a shipwreck several miles off the coast of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
His body was recovered from the area near the S.S. Wisconsin Wednesday morning, with the U.S. Coast Guard utilizing sonar and remotely operated robotic vehicles in the search.
Friends of Kelly’s at Winthrop Harbor Yacht Club affectionately referred to him as “PK.”
“PK was very friendly, didn’t matter if it was a stranger that walked through the door, he was going to greet you and make you feel welcome here,” friend Rich Boren said.
A passionate and experienced diver, Kelly was diving approximately six miles off the coast line of the Wisconsin-Illinois border Tuesday morning at the wreckage of the S.S. Wisconsin, located about 125 feet deep.
The S.S. Wisconsin was a steamer that sank in 1929 during a gale. Nine crew members were killed. The captain was pulled from the water but later died on shore, according to the Wisconsin Shipwrecks website.
Kelly was attempting to retrieve a severed line that could be a hazard to other divers and never completed his ascent.
“He’s done thousands of dives all around the world. He’s done hundreds, if not, a thousand dives at this particular site. He considered himself an expert on this site, a caretaker of this site,” friend Courtney Smith said. “He went down for this selfless act of making sure it didn’t have when he thought was a hazard.”
Those close to Kelly told NBC Chicago that “there are not enough superlatives” to describe the longtime diver and friend.