Woman Killed, Several Injured In Boat Crash Near Monroe Harbor

CHICAGO — A 26-year-old West Loop woman was killed and several other people were injured late Thursday when two boats crashed near Monroe Harbor in downtown Chicago, according to officials and reports.

The incident occurred around midnight near the 400 block of Monroe Street, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The woman was pronounced dead at 12:22 a.m., according to the medical examiner's office. Her name had not been released by the office as of Friday morning.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting the deceased is Johanna H. Gregory, of the West Loop neighborhood. Her father, Douglas Gregory told the media outlet she was a pediatric occupational therapist who treated a number of young children between six months old and 4 years old.

Emergency crews from the Chicago Fire Department, Chicago Police Department, the U.S. Coast Guard and the fire department's scuba team responded to the scene.

Fourteen people were rescued after the two boats collided, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Three people were taken to hospitals in serious-to-critical condition, while another person was listed in fair condition, according to the report.

Photos and video from the scene showed a badly damaged boat roped to a Chicago police boat in Lake Michigan, according to NBC Chicago. Multiple police cars and ambulances were seen near the waterfront, and emergency crews were seen carrying injured people onto land and loading them into ambulances.

No additional details about what led to the crash were immediately available.

The crash is at least the second fatal boating-related incident on Chicago’s lakefront in the past two summers. Last June, 27-year-old Zahrie Walls died after being pulled from Lake Michigan near Navy Pier after being on a boat, and another boater went missing near 63rd Street Beach the same weekend before a body was later recovered in that area.