By Vicky Wedig
SLN Staff
A 53-year-old Illinois man died Sunday after the snowmobile he was operating on Geneva Lake hit open water.
Mark G. Reninger, 53, of Wheeling, Ill., was pronounced dead at a hospital Sunday after the incident at about 9 p.m. in the Town of Linn.
State Department of Natural Resources warden Juan Gomez said Reninger and a friend, also in his 50s, from Long Grove, Ill., had traveled across the lake on snowmobiles from Fontana to Lake Geneva earlier Sunday evening to have dinner. They were returning, presumably along the same route, from Lake Geneva to Fontana at about 9 p.m. Sunday when they found themselves in the middle of the lake in open water, Gomez said.
The men were traveling west and encountered open water north of Williams Bay and south of the Lake Geneva Yacht Club. Gomez said a large portion of the lake from Williams Bay almost to Fontana is not frozen.
The other man accelerated his snowmobile enough to water skip, and, when he realized the machine was sinking, jumped off the snowmobile on to ice, Gomez said. The man called 911, but by the time rescue workers arrived, Reninger had been in the water half an hour to 40 minutes, Gomez said.
Rescue workers used a Town of Delavan hovercraft to get to the men. Rescue workers got the surviving victim to the shore, and he was taken to a hospital with hypothermia, Gomez said. Rescuers retrieved Reninger from the water, and he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
An airboat was also sent from a Fox Lake, Ill., department.
Gomez said both snowmobiles sank and are at the bottom of the lake, which is about 100 to 130 feet deep in that location.
Reninger’s death is the sixth snowmobile fatality of the season, according to the DNR.
Gomez urged local and visiting snowmobile riders to check conditions before any snowmobile outing.
“It is recommended to make contact with those in the community to check current ice conditions before venturing out on the lake,” he said.
